Vlhova beats Shiffrin in first slalom of World Cup season
Practice made perfect for Petra Vlhova on Saturday, beating Mikaela Shiffrin in the first World Cup slalom of the season.
The Slovakian overall champion had been training for three weeks in Finnish Lapland and skipped a parallel event in Austria last week to get ready for the first race in her strongest discipline.
The tactics paid off.
Vlhova posted the fastest time in both runs. She initially lost a few hundredths from her slim lead of .11 over Shiffrin but accelerated near the end of her final run to win by .31 as the pair continued their dominance in the annual event in Finnish Lapland.
Lena Dürr finished .84 behind in third for the German skier's second career podium result, nearly nine years after winning a city event in Moscow.
No skier other than Vlhova or Shiffrin has won the traditional season-opening slalom since then-overall champion Tina Maze triumphed in 2014. Shiffrin and Vlhova have now each win it four times. ranked player in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics, Zverev beat Djokovic 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3 at the same stage of the ATP Finals on Saturday.
“Every time we play against each other, it's very high level,” Zverev said. “This year we played each other five times. ... Every time we played for multiple hours and it was very physical.”
The result means Djokovic can't match Roger Federer's record of six titles at the season-ending event for the top eight players. At least not this year.
Instead, Zverev will play second-ranked Daniil Medvedev in Sunday's final.
Verstappen
Valtteri Bottas,