Elliott gets OT win at Texas Motor Speedway

Chase Elliott pulled ahead and cleared Ross Chastain on the first lap after the second restart in overtime Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, ending a 42-race winless streak for NASCAR’S most popular driver.

The race ended on the 16th caution after Elliott had taken the white flag for the 276th lap in a race scheduled for 267 laps. Chastain got bumped from behind by defending race winner William Byron, who finished third and was just behind Brad Keselowski when the final yellow flag came out.

It was the fifth win this season for Hendrick Motorsports, the 306th for NASCAR’S winningest team, but the first for Elliott in the No. 9 since Talladega in October 2022.

Elliott and Denny Hamlin were at the front of the field after a restart with two laps left in regulation, and they were racing all-out when Hamlin got loose on the outside going into Turn 4 and went hard into the wall, bringing out the 14th caution and sending the race to overtime.

That was the second restart in the last 10 laps of regulation, with Hamlin leading on the previous one before Elliott edged ahead about the same time that another caution came out when polesitter Kyle Larson wrecked after a crowded four-wide jumble back in the field.

On the first restart in overtime, Elliott was on the inside and took a hard shove from Keselowski, but Harrison Burton was wrecked within a half lap.

In NASCAR’S only stop this season at Texas Motor Speedway, which for the first time in 20 years won’t host a fall playoff race, there were 13 different leaders.

Keselowski has now gone 107 races since his last win at Talladega in April 2021.

Hamlin, the only driver to lead laps in all nine races this season, became the third driver to wreck when running second in the race, and all of those came in the same area of the track. Chastain became the fourth to crash from the No. 2 spot.

• Sam Mayer made a last-lap pass and held on to win by a matter of inches ahead of Ryan Sieg at Texas Motor Speedway in one of the closest finishes in Xfinity Series history.

Mayer was high against the outside wall after the two cars banged side by side on the way to the checkered flag. The final margin was .002, matching the second-closest finish in series history.

Justin Allgaier finished third after leading 117 of the race’s 200 laps.

Sieg went from 10th place to first in a span of four laps just before the race’s final caution. After the restart with 11 to go, Sieg stayed in front until the final lap when Mayer was able to get the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet under and by him on the backstretch.

Off the final turn, Sieg got back to the inside of Mayer but came up just short in the No. 39 Ford of getting his first win in 342 career starts for the RSS Racing team owned by his family.

While Allgaier dominated the race without winning, he finished in the top 10 for the 266th time in his career. That matched Kyle Busch’s record for the most in Xfinity Series history.

Tsitsipas sweeps Ruud at Monte Carlo Masters

Stefanos Tsitsipas swept aside Casper Ruud 6-1, 6-4 on Sunday to win the clay-court Monte Carlo Masters

for the third time in four years, and then wept in his chair.

Tsitsipas sat holding his head in his hands, briefly crying as he took in his first title of the year and biggest tournament victory for two years.

“I’m very proud of myself today. I had been waiting for a moment like this for a long time,” said the 12thranked Tsitsipas, who reached a career-high No. 3 ranking in 2021. “I did not know what was going to happen this week.”

The big-serving Greek also won the title in 2021 and 2022 and this latest trophy at the Monte Carlo Country Club took him to 11 career titles overall.

It was his first trophy since August last year, when he won a modest ATP 250-level tournament on outdoor hard courts at Los Cabos in Mexico.

This was much more prestigious and he shared a warm hug at the net with Ruud, who is chasing his first title of the year and remains stuck on 10 overall.

• Carlos Alcaraz pulled out of the Barcelona Open on Sunday with the same injury in his right forearm that kept him out of the Monte Carlo Masters, leaving his preparation for the May 26 start of the French Open on hold.

Alcaraz, 20, is a two-time Grand Slam champion and former No. 1-ranked player who is currently No.

3. He won the title at the clay-court Barcelona Open in 2022 and 2023.

He hasn’t played in a tournament since losing to Grigor Dimitrov in the Miami Open quarterfinals last month.

Alcaraz won the U.S. Open in 2022 and Wimbledon last year. His lone trophy so far this season came at Indian Wells in March.