I Dig Sports
Update final date: Seamaster 2019 ITTF World Tour Platinum China Open
Published in
Table Tennis
Saturday, 01 June 2019 17:47
Intriguing day
…………Can Wang Manyu retain her women’s singles title? She faces Mima Ito in the second women’s singles semi-final of the day.
…………Wang Manyu and Mima Ito met at the same stage last year, Wang Manyu prevailed in five games (11-8, 12-10, 11-5, 10-12, 11-8).
…………Mima Ito won her most recent encounter against Wang Manyu; just under one year ago she prevailed in the final on home soil at the Seamaster 2018 ITTF World Tour Japan Open in Kitakyushu (11-7, 12-10, 8-11, 11-7, 6-11, 12-10).
…………Chen Meng has a liking for Suzhou, she won in consecutive years 2012 and 2013; she meets Zhu Yuling in the first semi-final of the day. Zhu Yuling won in 2015 in Chengdu.
…………Lin Gaoyuan is the hometown boy, he meets Xu Xin in the first men’s singles semi-final,
…………Tomokazu Harimoto faces the most prodigious task of all, in the second semi-final of the day he confronts Ma Long
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DES MOINES, Iowa – Scott Parel shot a 6-under 66 on Saturday to extend his lead to five strokes in the PGA Tour Champions' Principal Charity Classic.
Parel had a 15-under 129 total at Wakonda Club to break the tournament 36-hole record of 13 under set a year ago by eventual winner Tom Lehman.
The 54-year-old Parel won twice last year on the 50-and-older tour, and he's a strong bet to add a third win Sunday after a second straight bogey-free round.
''I like how I'm playing,'' Parel said. ''Somebody's going to have to play good to beat me.''
The list of players who'll try to do just includes Marco Dawson, who shot a 65 to match Jerry Kelly (67) at 10 under. Gene Sauers (68), David Toms (68) and Billy Andrade (69) were 9 under.
Parel tied the course record of 63 on Friday, finishing with five birdies on the back nine. Parel pulled away even more from the field with a second-round performance that was nearly as dominant.
Parel stuck his approach to 6 feet on No. 10 to push his lead to four shots, and a birdie putt on No. 12 gave him a five-stroke lead.
Parel's streak of par-5 birdies at Wakonda didn't end until he missed on No. 13 by about an inch. After Parel put himself into a green-side bunker on the 16th hole, he chipped to a foot.
Parel will be tough to beat in the final round if he can at least stay under par, but that's not how he plans to approach it.
''I've played with these guys enough to know that somebody back there probably is going to shoot seven to nine under (par),'' Parel said. ''There's no let up.''
Dawson, who shot a first-round 69, kicked off his surge with an eagle on the par-5 fifth hole. Dawson bogeyed the next hole, but he rallied with seven more birdies to get within striking distance of Parel heading into Sunday - though he did blow a 3-foot birdie putt on No. 15.
Despite shooting Saturday's low round, Dawson was still well off Parel's pace.
''You don't have any control over (Parel's) game. He doesn't have any control over your game. So if he plays great, great,'' Dawson said. ''You don't want to change your strategy, so to speak.''
Kelly picked up an eagle on the fifth hole to highlight a bogey-free day. Sauers surged up the leaderboard with six straight birdies before closing with a bogey and a short missed birdie putt on No. 18.
Money leader Scott McCarron, whose first senior win came in Iowa in 2016, was 7 under after a 67.
Chris DiMarco, who started the second round in second place, two strokes back of Parel, fell apart on Saturday. He bogeyed back-to-back holes on the front nine and finished with a 75.
After opening with a 76, Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee rebounded with a 1-under 71 in his first PGA Tour Champions start since last year's The Senior Open. The 56-year-old is 3 over and 15 shots off the pace after two rounds.
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Lexi one back at U.S. Women's Open with new claw grip
Published in
Golf
Saturday, 01 June 2019 13:34
Lexi Thompson will enter the final round at the U.S. Women’s Open once again hunting her second major championship victory.
Thompson finally took advantage of the Country Club of Charleston’s three par 5s Saturday, playing them in 4 under with two birdies and an eagle. She had settled for six pars in her first two rounds.
At 6 under for the week after a third-round 68, she’ll enter the final round tied for second, just one behind co-leaders Yu Liu and Celine Boutier.
“I made up for it today, I guess,” Thompson said. “It's funny, I didn't realize that. I knew I was struggling on the par 5s a little bit, but I didn't realize I didn't birdie one until today. My caddie reminded me of it when I birdied the first one. We just caught a joke out of it.”
Thompson won her lone major at the 2014 ANA Inspiration and has endured a number of close calls since. She is the owner of eight major top-5 finishes. She’s been a runner-up twice, most notably at the 2017 ANA, when she was hit with a now-infamous, four-shot penalty.
A new wrinkle in her latest bid for major No. 2 is a claw putting grip she began using just this week. Thompson’s brother Curtis employs the claw and suggested his sister give it a try.
“I've been looking for something that just flows a little better,” she said. “He's like, you should try it. It's really good. …
“He actually came here, I believe, Wednesday just to help me out and see if he could figure out some of my putting. I ended up trying the claw grip and just stuck with it. It feels very good. Obviously, there's some putts out there that I'm like, eh, maybe not so good. But I feel comfortable with it, and I think that's the important part.”
Thompson has taken 32 putts in each round after hitting 15, 16 and 16 greens in regulation.
“Honestly, my key tomorrow is just, like I said, to go into it as I did the last three days, same mindset,” she said. “I've made a few changes in my swing, my putting. So really just focusing on those things, I think, is key."
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Tottenham must answer tough questions to emulate Liverpool's success
Published in
Soccer
Saturday, 01 June 2019 18:42
MADRID -- Defeat on the biggest stage can trigger two responses: The losers either allow the disappointment to drag them down to the realms of the also-rans, or use it as inspiration to go again and come back stronger.
Liverpool, having suffered a painful and comprehensive 3-1 defeat against Real Madrid in last season's Champions League final, took the latter option. The Anfield club invested wisely in the likes of Alisson and Fabinho and, having almost won the Premier League with 97 points, ended this campaign with a 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur that delivered the club's sixth European Cup.
Tottenham face that same fork in the road, but there are too many question marks hanging over Mauricio Pochettino's team -- not least that of the manager's own future -- to suggest with any conviction that the North London outfit will follow Liverpool's example this summer. In the aftermath of this defeat, deep inside the Wanda Metropolitano, Pochettino was again careful not to banish the questions marks.
"I think it's not a moment now to talk too much," he said. "You can interpret things in different ways. After five years in Tottenham, it was so clear the project. Our ambition was amazing and the commitment of our players amazing, providing us with our first ever Champions League final. But now it's time to be calm, change our mind and have time to talk."
Pochettino has three years to run on his contract at Tottenham, but recent non-committal remarks about whether he will stay or go after five years in charge have created doubt where there needs to be absolute certainty.
If he does leave, then Tottenham will be back to the drawing board, but even if Pochettino can be persuaded to stay for another crack at turning the club into trophy winners, the job he faces will be a big one, both in terms of finance and ambition.
Tottenham must somehow square a circle that has seen initial projections of the club's new stadium costing £400 million, rise to an eventual £1 billion. They have to pay for the ground at the same time as investing in a squad that has not had a penny spent on it since Lucas Moura arrived from Paris Saint-Germain for £25m in January 2018.
Pochettino's ability as a coach has seen him work wonders overcoming that competitive disadvantage, guiding Tottenham to this final and a top-four finish in the Premier League once again. However, the lack of investment is why his line-up in Madrid featured two half-fit Harrys -- Kane and Winks -- and out-of-form right-back Kieran Trippier, whose dip since the World Cup last summer has seen him dropped from England's squad for next week's Nations League finals in Portugal.
"We looked at the qualities of our players, but it would have been incredible to have won this trophy because Tottenham prioritised their stadium and spent zero on transfers," Pochettino said. "We're not the smartest in the class but not the stupidest either."
- Marcotti: Journey for Liverpool's European champions is not over
- Liverpool ratings: 8/10 Alisson, Van Dijk set foundation for victory
- Tottenham ratings: 5/10 Kane, Alli struggle as Spurs fall short
Tottenham maximised every resource to reach the Champions League final, but if this run is to act as a springboard, rather than a high watermark, things have to change. They must spend to build, but also show the ambition that will convince the likes of Kane, Son Heung-Min and Dele Alli that they can win silverware.
Kane, who will turn 26 next month, is approaching the peak years of his career, yet the man who won the Golden Boot at last year's World Cup does not have a winners' medal of any description to his name.
Tottenham's homegrown poster-boy tasted the biggest stage as a runner-up in Madrid, albeit short of fitness following a seven-week injury layoff, and Kane has to decide whether he wants to fast-track himself to the winners' podium by following the likes of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric from North London to a club of Real Madrid's stature.
The same applies to Alli -- younger than Kane at 23 -- and Son, 26. Both have their admirers, even though Alli has had a disappointing season, and Tottenham could face a battle to convince both that they should reject interest from elsewhere to stay. Meanwhile, Christian Eriksen is refusing to sign a new contract to replace his current deal that expires in June 2020 and might be the first to move on.
One way to banish doubts over the futures of star players and manager would be for Daniel Levy to sanction the major spending required to maintain an upward trajectory. The chairman has never put the club's financial well-being in jeopardy, though, so if the numbers do not add up, big spending will not happen any time soon.
Liverpool never looked like being a team at the end of its journey last year, but it is hard to see how Tottenham can emulate them by bouncing back to win the Champions League in Istanbul 12 months from now. After the biggest night in club history, arguably their biggest summer lies ahead.
"We need to be clever now and, after a very painful game like this, it's about building for the next period of your life," Pochettino said. "Of course it's going to be tough."
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DETROIT – Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron, co-drivers of the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi, accomplished something in Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic that hadn’t been done since IMSA began racing on Detroit’s Belle Isle Park.
Before Saturday, General Motors race cars won their class in all nine IMSA races held on Belle Isle from 2007 through 2018, including overall victories from 2012 through last year.
On Saturday Montoya and Cameron came away with their second consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory in a tight, 100-minute battle on the 2.3-mile street circuit.
RELATED: Hawksworth & Heistand Stand Tall In Belle Isle Brawl
After claiming the Motul Pole Award in qualifying Friday, Montoya got a fantastic jump at the start to take the lead, which he held for the first 19 laps of what would be a 58-lap race before pitting under the second of the race’s five full-course caution periods to turn the car over to Cameron. Montoya’s stop turned the lead over to Tristan Nunez, who was on a different pit-stop strategy in the No. 77 Mazda Team Joest RT24-P DPi.
Following the ensuing restart, however, Cameron picked up where Montoya left off, taking the lead away from Nunez on the first green-flag lap. Cameron surrendered the lead for one more lap when he came in for his final pit stop but retook the lead on lap 35.
Cameron led the field to the green flag for the final restart with just under 22 minutes remaining, but he quickly had last year’s Detroit winner, Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R, right on his tail. Nasr filled Cameron’s mirrors all the way to the checkered flag, but never could get quite close enough as Cameron crossed the stripe .820 of a second ahead of the No. 31 to take the victory.
“Certainly, we’ll take that,” said Cameron, who won at Detroit in 2015 in the Whelen Engineering Corvette DP with then-co-driver Eric Curran. “It’s a little bit unexpected for us. Usually the street course is pretty good for the Cadillac, so we knew they were going to competitive here, but obviously we were looking for more of a podium than wins here and get some good points.
“I’m super excited to win here and get two in a row. Lots of people who get two wins in a row get championships, so hopefully that’s a good omen for the balance of the season.”
Cameron and Montoya also won last month’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. It was Acura’s second overall victory in Detroit, the first coming in the 2008 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race on Belle Isle when James Rossiter and Franck Montagny won for Andretti-Green Racing.
It was Montoya’s fifth IMSA win (two WeatherTech Championship and three Grand-Am) and was Cameron’s 14th (12 WeatherTech Championship, one Grand-Am, one ALMS).
“To win in Detroit finally, it’s good,” said Montoya. “It’s nice to be here. It’s nice to be here with Acura – it’s an amazing program – and Team Penske. [Team owner] Roger [Penske]’s home race. I felt yesterday I did a really good job in qualifying. To convert that into a win, Dane did an amazing job out there today too. We did everything we needed to do again. We just need to keep doing that every week.”
The victory moved Cameron and Montoya into second in the WeatherTech Championship DPi standings, but Nasr and co-driver Pipo Derani slightly extended their lead to five, 152-147, with the runner-up result. The No. 31 duo came up just short of extending General Motors’ hometown win streak.
The run included back-to-back American Le Mans Series GT1 class wins by Corvette Racing in 2007 and 2008. Corvette Daytona Prototypes won overall in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series in 2012 and 2013, as well as IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races from 2014 through 2016. Cadillac DPi race cars won in both 2017 and 2018.
Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor picked up their third podium result in five races this season and made it two Acura Team Penske DPis in the top three with a third-place showing. They are third in the DPi championship standings at the halfway point of the 10-race season for the DPi class, trailing Montoya and Cameron by just one point.
Simon Trummer and Stephen Simpson came home fourth in the No. 84 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac DPi-V.R for their best result of the season to date. Misha Goikhberg and Tristan Vautier finished one spot behind their JDC-Miller teammates with a fifth-place showing in the No. 85 Cadillac DPi.
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LEXINGTON, Ohio – Summer arrived in full force on Saturday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA Super Tour, hosted by the Ohio Valley Region SCCA, where temperatures stretched into the upper 80s under a hot sun.
Michael Lavigne opened the afternoon with a win in his No. 42 Auto Re-Nu-It Auto Body Ford Mustang GT. Lavigne had to clear Rob Huffmaster’s Super Touring® Under class-winning and overall polesitting Honda S2000, then hold off the field again following an early caution period. Aaron Kaplan tried to make it a fight with his BMW M3, but Lavigne used the traffic to clear Kaplan again and take a 2.273-second win.
“That was a great race today,” Lavigne said. “Aaron finally made his move and got to me. We had good racing for a few laps and I put some distance on him. It was a real good day for us.”
Typically, with a few exceptions, the cross-country battles are reserved for the season-ending SCCA National Championship Runoffs. But a gang of talented Spec Racer Ford Gen3 drivers are barnstorming across the country this summer, with stops at Mid-Ohio, Road America and Watkins Glen. By the looks of it, they plan to pillage their East Coast hosts of all of their trophies.
San Francisco Region’s John Black held off Michigan’s Bobby Sak and his West Coast counterpart T.J. Acker to stand on top of the podium on Saturday. The trio were battling from flag-to-flag, along with road trip ringleader Mike Miserendino in fourth.
“That was a tough one,” Black said. “It was a real race, all the way to the last lap. We were two-wide there for a while. It was a heck of a race. We thought we’d come back and hit some really good tracks. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years, and I guess it worked out!”
Kevin Ruck used his home track knowledge and his National Championship-winning F Production No. 73 Hoosier/Honda Acura Integra to take an overall win in a group three race that also included E Production, H Production, GT-Lite and B-Spec. Ruck and E Production winner Breton Williams were 17 seconds ahead of third overall Charlie Campbell in the Mid-Ohio sun.
“The track was real quick for the first five or six laps,” Ruck said. “I had a good race with Breton right at the start. It was a pretty big field with a huge speed disparity, so the second half of the race was a lot of where are you going to put your car and being predictable. That became the name of the game.”
Jim Drago held off a charging Brian Henderson in Spec Miata, with Jared Thomas and Jonathan Davis completing the top-four in a nose to tail battle. Drago started on pole and took care of business in the No. 2 East Street Racing Mazda Miata by 0.326-second over 12th starting Henderson. The race included a duel with Thomas, with hard racing and side-to-side contact on more than one occasion.
Daniel Richardson ran his “toughest race ever” in a battle with Steven Ott on his way to an American Sedan® win in the No. 5 Gentium Tech/Hoosier Chevrolet Camaro. Richardson was Ott’s driver coach when he got started five years ago, and the pair have maintained a tight friendship.
“There was a spin on the start and everyone went every direction they could,” Richardson said. “Steve got by me. He was flying and I got really lucky with some traffic. I got by him on the back straight and we raced nose to tail the entire race. Side by side, door to door, nonstop. We got by Andy McDermid at the end. It was the best race I’ve ever had in American Sedan.”
Saturday concluded with a participant party at Mid-Ohio’s Honda Pavilion, where volunteers, friends, drivers, crew and family ducked under the picnic shelter for food, drinks and door prizes. On Sunday, racing begins again at 8:40 a.m. ET with 21-lap or 35-minute races. Follow all the action live at www.scca.com/live.
Below are provisional race results from Saturday’s Hoosier SCCA Super Tour from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with Class: Name, Hometown, Region and Car.
-American Sedan: Daniel Richardson, Derwood, Md., Washington DC Region, Chevrolet Camaro
-B-Spec: Fritz Wilke, Chelsea, Mich., Detroit Region, Ford Fiesta
-E Production: Breton Williams, Clinton, Iowa, Great River Region, Mazda MX-5
-F Production: Kevin Ruck, Marysville, Ohio, Ohio Valley Region, Acura Integra
-H Production: Eric Vickerman, Howell, Mich., Detroit Region, Austin Healey Sprite
-Formula 500: David Lapham, Waterfod, Mich., New York Region, Novacar J-10
-Formula 1000: Yarin Stern, Austin, Texas, Lonestar Region, Griiip G1
-Formula Atlantic®: Ahsen Yelkin, Canfield, Ohio, Steel Cities Region, Swift 014/Toyota
-Formula Continental: Reece Everard, Lake Orion, Mich., Detroit Region, Van Dieman/Ford
-Formula Enterprises: Jim Libecco, Solon, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Formula Enterprises/Mazda
-Formula Enterprises 2: Liam Snyder, Southlake, Texas, Texas Region, Formula Enterprises/Mazda
-Formula F: Alex Scaler, Flemington, N.J., South Jersey Region, Mygale M13/Honda
-Formula Mazda: Owen McAllister, Mooresville, N.C., Texas Region, Formula Mazda
-Formula Vee: Andrew Whitston, Neenah, Wis., Milwaukee Region, Protoform P2/Volkswagen
-GT-1: Ryan McManus, Westfield Center, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Chevrolet Corvette
-GT-2: Aaron Quine, Wadsworth, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Chevrolet Camaro
-GT-3: Joe Kristensen, London, Ontario, Detroit Region, Honda Civic
-GT-Lite: Graham Fuller, Martinsburg, W.Va., Washington DC Region, Honda CRX
-GT-X: Larry Funk, Oberlin, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Ford FP350S
-Prototype 1: Gary Peck, Rockford, Ill., Blackhawk Valley Region, Stohr WF1
-Prototype 2: Mike Reupert, Hubertus, Wis., Milwaukee Region, Nostendo 1
-Spec Miata: Jim Drago, Memphis, Tenn., Mid South Region, Mazda Miata
-Spec Racer Ford 3: John Black, Olympic Valley, Calif., San Francisco Region, Spec Racer Ford
-Super Touring Lite: Garret Dunn, Commerce Township, Mich., Detroit Region, Honda CRX Si
-Super Touring Under: Rob Huffmaster, Clarkston, Mich., Detroit Region, Honda S2000
-Touring 1: Bill Baten, Indianapolis, Ind., Indianapolis Region, Chevrolet Camaro
-Touring 2: Michael Lavigne, Hooksett, N.H., New England Region, Ford Mustang GT
-Touring 3: Dan March, Boiling Springs, Pa., Susquehanna Region, BMW M3
-Touring 4: John Heinricy, Clarkston, Mich., Detroit Region, Toyota 86
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STE-CROIX, Quebec – The American-Canadian Tour Jean-Paul Cabana 125 scheduled for Sunday has been postponed due to an inclement weather forecast.
The event has been rescheduled for Sunday, Aug. 18.
The postponement creates a new American-Canadian Tour Quebec doubleheader later in the season. ACT will sanction the $10,000 CAD-to-win Bacon Bowl 200 at Autodrome Chaudiere on Saturday, Aug. 17 and the $5,000 CAD-to-win Jean-Paul Cabana 125 the following day.
The ACT Late Model Tour is racing at Autodrome Chaudiere Saturday for the Claude Leclerc 150 to open the Summer Kickoff Series.
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Amateur Lee hit with slow-play penalty at U.S. Women's Open
Published in
Golf
Saturday, 01 June 2019 11:42
Amateur Andrea Lee was assessed a one-shot penalty for slow play during the third round of the U.S. Women's Open on Saturday.
With rounds approaching six hours at the Country Club of Charleston, the Stanford junior and fourth-ranked amateur in the world was the only player in the field singled out for slow play.
Lee was 5 over on her round when she was informed of the penalty, which was preceded by a warning.
Given the pace of the entire event, and considering Lee was only player penalized, the social media reaction was not kind, with the USGA (yet again) drawing criticism:
Lee would go on to sign for a 7-over 79 that left her 8 over for the week, in 66th place.
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Spieth (69) on progress: 'Night-and-day' difference since Byron Nelson
Published in
Golf
Saturday, 01 June 2019 12:14
DUBLIN, Ohio – The comeback continues for Jordan Spieth.
Starting the day one shot off the lead at the Memorial, Spieth was slow out of the gates, and on No. 3 he suffered his first three-putt in 137 holes. But he bounced back down the stretch, including a pair of late birdies and a clutch par save on No. 18 to close out a third-round 69 that left him in a tie for third, four shots behind Martin Kaymer.
Spieth didn’t benefit from a highlight reel of hole-outs like he did en route to an opening-round 66, but he’s still very much in the mix for what would be his first victory since the 2017 Open at Royal Birkdale.
“That was a grind. I had a little bit of a two-way miss with the irons today which left me in some tough spots,” Spieth said. “I thought 3 under in the wind would leave me within two or maybe three of the lead, but looks like it’s going to be four.”
Spieth’s stint in Ohio continues a steady progression of form that dates back to the AT&T Byron Nelson three weeks ago. He has played four straight events, and after a Sunday fade at Trinity Forest he followed a T-3 at the PGA Championship with a T-8 result last week at Colonial.
It’s a welcome stretch of positivity for a player who largely struggled with both his game and confidence through the first half of the season but now appears poised for further success, even if a coveted handshake with tournament host Jack Nicklaus on the 72nd green remains outside his grasp this weekend.
“All in all I’m pleased with the progress that’s been made,” Spieth said. “If I look back three weeks from the Byron Nelson to now, it’s night and day in my opinion about how I feel about my game and how it’s actually producing. So I’m pleased with that, and I’m just trying to make a little bit more progress tomorrow.”
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Kaymer (66) 'not apologizing' for drastically improved putting
Published in
Golf
Saturday, 01 June 2019 12:28
DUBLIN, Ohio – As his friend Adam Scott explained, Martin Kaymer is very direct, so when the German was asked about his drastically improved putting this week at the Memorial, his answer was predictably to the point.
“I think I read them well and I stroke them well,” said Kaymer, who extended his lead to two strokes Saturday with a third-round 66. “I think it's one of those times, similar to Pinehurst [2014 U.S. Open], where I didn't miss many putts within 10, 12 feet. Obviously, you need that in order to win on the PGA Tour.”
If that sounds overly simple, consider that Kaymer ranks 128th this season in strokes gained: putting and 194th in putting average.
By comparison, he’s first this week in the field in strokes gained: putting, picking up 9.377 shots on the field on the greens. During the third round, he converted three putts over 10 feet, and he’s one of 18 players without a three-putt.
“I didn't know that I was plus nine shots on the greens. But I don't really care about that,” Kaymer said. “I worked really hard on the short game. I worked really hard on the putting over the last two or three years, and particularly over the last four or five months, so I'm not apologizing.”
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