TORONTO -- Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard made the first Game 7 buzzer-beater in NBA history after his fadeaway jumper bounced four times on the rim before falling through the net as time expired in Toronto's 92-90 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.

"It was great," Leonard said. "That's something I never experienced before -- Game 7, winning shot. It's a blessing to get to that point and make that shot and feel that moment, and it's something I can look back on in my career."

With the game tied 90-90 and 4.2 seconds remaining, the ball was inbounded to Leonard, who was guarded by 76ers guard Ben Simmons. As Leonard dribbled along the right side of the perimeter, Sixers center Joel Embiid pursued him along the right sideline. With less than a second remaining in regulation, Leonard elevated in the right corner over Embiid's outstretched arm and launched the shot.

"We ran a similar play in the [Orlando] Magic [first-round] series, and I ended up just catching and shooting the ball," Leonard said. "Embiid was guarding me. He's taller and longer than me, so I ended up finding a spot that I work on, and I just knew that I had to shoot it high."

The final horn sounded as the ball reached its apex before caroming off the rim several times. As it did, Leonard squatted in the right corner, tongue between pursed lips, awaiting the shot's fate. After the ball bounced through the iron, Leonard rose with his arms in the air and let out a scream before being rushed by teammates.

"It was crazy," Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said. "It was one of those moments where it's just like a real-life game winner, Game 7, like, count it down when you're back home, and everyone was celebrating like that. It was a pretty awesome moment."

The decisive shot was the final basket of a historic night for Leonard, who scored a game-high 41 points, and only the second buzzer-beater in a winner-take-all game in the postseason, after Michael Jordan's iconic shot to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the 1989 Eastern Conference playoffs. Leonard's 39 shot attempts on Sunday are second to only Elgin Baylor's 40 in 1962 as the most in an NBA Game 7.

The Raptors next travel to Milwaukee for the Eastern Conference finals. They face the top-seeded Bucks in Game 1 on Wednesday.

TORONTO -- Joel Embiid walked off the court in tears following the Philadelphia 76ers' 92-90 Game 7 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Sunday, as Philadelphia's playoff run ended in the final seconds of the final game of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

He had played 45 minutes, more than he ever had in regulation, and outstretched every bit of his 7-foot-6 wingspan to contest Kawhi Leonard's buzzer-beating shot, the first of its kind to win a Game 7 in NBA history.

"Losing the game that way," Embiid said when asked about his show of emotion. "Last shot. After a hard-fought game, I feel like we had a chance. A lot of things go through your mind. And it sucks. I don't know. I can't explain it. It just sucks."

Before making his way to the locker room, Embiid shared an embrace with Raptors center Marc Gasol, who offered a few words of encouragement between hearty sobs by the 25-year-old center, who has become the face of the Sixers franchise.

"He was just telling me ... tried to let me know that I'll be right there at this moment and even further in my career," Embiid said, praising the class that Gasol displayed.

Of course, Embiid's future success will be tied to many decisions that need to be made by the Sixers, starting this summer.

Three of Philadelphia's five starters -- Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris and JJ Redick -- are headed toward free agency. The Sixers' coach, Brett Brown, while under contract, will have to answer to the expectations laid out by Sixers co-owner Josh Harris in March.

"We want to make sure at a minimum to advance deeper in the playoffs than we did last year," Harris said at the MIT/Sloan Analytics Conference in March, adding that he would be "unhappy" if that weren't the case.

Technically, the Sixers advanced further -- making it to Game 7 of the second round, rather than Game 5, as they did in their loss to the Boston Celtics in 2018 -- but Harris' statement obviously begs the question as to what changes could occur because his goal was not met.

"I think the group incrementally, as I said in the beginning before we played, has slowly come together," Brown said. "I think our starting group is as talented as any in the NBA. ... I think moving forward, you try to hold on to as much of it as you can. And it's not my area. [General manager] Elton [Brand] will be great at this, and I'm sure a large portion of the challenge and the planning will be how do you grow the bench and hold on to as much of the starters as you can."

Brown was asked directly about his job security.

"Stuff like that, we've talked internally a lot," Brown said. "The club can respond to that."

Philadelphia's starting five, heralded as one of the best collections of talent in the sport, has still played only 21 games together in the regular season and playoffs combined. In that time, the 76ers found themselves one possession away from a berth in the Eastern Conference finals.

"We haven't been together for a while with this group," Ben Simmons said. "There is a lot of potential. The guys that we have, everyone we have now, we grew a lot in the last few months of being together. I'm proud of my guys."

When asked what the Sixers learned from the Raptors, Simmons didn't mince words. "It's simple," he said. "You just got to get better."

Butler, like Brown, was asked about his future.

"I'm not worried about none of that right now," Butler said when free agency came up during the postgame news conference. "I just got done losing. I don't want to talk about nothing else except for basketball."

Embiid, who pushed himself to play through left knee tendinitis, a bout of gastroenteritis and an upper respiratory infection during the postseason, was an injured first-year player in 2015-16, when Philadelphia went 10-72 as it played out its controversial rebuild known as "The Process" that was introduced by former general manager Sam Hinkie.

Embiid embodied the turnaround, even adopting "The Process" as his self-appointed nickname.

Addressing the media postgame, with an offseason rife with uncertainty ahead of him and years of bad basketball behind him, he was asked where "The Process" stands now and how exhausted he felt after playing all but 2 minutes, 48 seconds of the 48 minutes played Sunday.

"I don't give a damn about 'The Process,'" he said. "And no, I'm not tired."

The last time the Toronto Raptors played a Game 7, it was a 27-point blowout over the Miami Heat in 2016 that sent the Raptors to their first conference finals berth in franchise history.

After a disheartening loss in Game 6 against the Philadelphia 76ers, the two teams engaged in a seesaw battle that included 10 lead changes and six ties leading up to the final seconds of the series.

To recount the biggest shot in the second round of the 2019 playoffs -- and Toronto Raptors history -- we turn to those present for the occasion:

Kawhi Leonard missed the second of two free throws with 10.8 seconds remaining. The Raptors led 90-88.

Leonard: I was disappointed missing that free throw. I was very mad.

Tobias Harris collected the rebound and pushed the ball to Jimmy Butler, who streaked up the court and got a fast-break layup to fall with 4.2 seconds remaining over the outstretched arm of Serge Ibaka.

Leonard: I tried to race down and get the rebound. Probably should have sprinted back to give some help on that layup that Jimmy made. But after that, I was just like, whatever play he drew up, I'm gonna have to get to my spot and shoot it with confidence.

Raptors head coach Nick Nurse called a timeout and a final play was drawn up.

Nurse: We run Kyle [Lowry] off there first as the first option. Then, Kawhi loops under there and gets it at the top and it's his call from there what to do. We've seen that one a few times this year.

Leonard: We ran a similar play during the Magic series and I ended up just catch-and-shooting the ball. It was probably about three seconds so, I just remembered that moment, knowing I had time at least to pump fake and take a dribble.

So, he drew up that play again tonight and there was four seconds left and, remembering that moment, I knew I had some time to get some space rather than just catch and shoot the ball.

Leonard took the inbounds pass from Marc Gasol near the top of the key. Ben Simmons pushed him out near half court and Leonard started a drive toward the right corner. Joel Embiid left Pascal Siakam to pick up Leonard across the hash mark.

Leonard took one more dribble toward the baseline and rose for a 21-footer over Embiid in the corner.

Raptors general manager Bobby Webster: I always walk down to the first row so I know I can get out before. I'm standing next to Nick's wife, and [Kawhi] is coming toward us. You're worried about -- is he going to get the shot off in time? He comes deeper, deeper, deeper. Embiid's on him. Then he's just got to get it up high enough to get over Embiid.

Leonard: I ended up catching it and just trying to get to a space so I could get the shot off. Embiid was guarding me. But he's taller and longer than me, so I ended up finding a spot that I like ... that I work on. I knew I had to shoot it high. A couple of possessions before that I had the same kind of shot from 3 and it ended up coming short. I had to put it up even higher than that.

Scotiabank Arena security guard Bader Beituni: I was standing with one of my friends here and I called it. I told him, "Kawhi's gonna take this. It's gonna be a game winner right here."

Leonard: I just went into my shot, and just shot it as high as I could and I got some loft on it. It felt great.

JJ Redick: It looked short. It looked short. And there's a lot of emotion that happens as the ball starts rolling around the rim.

Four bounces.

Webster: Front of the rim -- I will say when it hit front of the rim I said, "Ah, it looks a little different than normal." You know? It looked a little different than normal, right?

Butler: He hit a tough one. You tip your hat to that. He's an incredible player. We know it. Y'all know it. And there's not much more you can say about that.

76ers head coach Brett Brown: I really felt when it hit the rim that it was going to end up going in. It didn't surprise me that it went in. When it hits at that angle and it goes kinda straight up, you feel like there is a chance that it is actually going to go in. Not to pretend like you can forecast anything, it didn't surprise me that it ended up falling in.

It did seem like it was up there for a while, but with the way he missed and the bounce on the ball and the fact that it did go straight up and not go to the right or the left. It's a tough way to lose. That's a hell of a shot and what a tremendous series.

Simmons: Jo obviously got out there and was able to put a hand up, but he's a great player who made a great shot.

Scotiabank Arena security guard Nicholas Prasad: I saw the ball hit the basket, hit the rim the first time. The first thing I thought about was, "We're going to overtime." Second time it hit the rim, I thought we had a chance. And the third time it went in. And I'm like, "Damn, with this referee system they're definitely going to review it."

And when that ball went in I ran up three stairs -- I almost tripped twice -- and all I saw was Masai [Ujiri] crying. I saw everybody in the stands crying. We were just in shock. But it was like a really good shock. And that was just joy.

Nurse: Looks like it's going in. Looks like it's going in to me. I thought it was obviously a nice lucky bounce, right? I thought we were very unlucky for a lot of that game, so it came back to us a little bit.

I think he missed a couple of those along the way this season. That exact same play. Similar shot. So, it's good the balancing scales were there tonight.

Embiid: Game 7 -- losing the game that way. Last shot. After a hard-fought game. I feel like we had a chance. A lot of things go through your mind. It sucks. I can't explain it. It just sucks.

Lowry: Superstar. In 2001, it didn't fall for Vince [Carter]. In 2019, it fell for Kawhi.

ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz contributed to this story.

Atlanta Braves right-hander Kevin Gausman on Sunday dropped the appeal of his five-game suspension for intentionally throwing at the Miami Marlins' Jose Urena on May 3.

He began serving the suspension on Sunday against the Arizona Diamondbacks and will miss the Braves' three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals and Friday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Gausman got the win on Saturday night against Arizona, giving up one run and five hits in six innings to improve to 2-3 on the season. He has a 4.50 ERA in eight starts.

He was ejected in the second inning the Braves' 7-2 victory over the Marlins on May 3 for throwing a 97 mph fastball behind Urena, who was at the center of a melee last season with the Braves.

Urena was suspended six games last season for intentionally hitting the Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr., who had homered in five straight games at the time, including three straight against the Marlins.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays were interrupted by a power outage at Tropicana Field that caused a 43-minute delay on Sunday.

The lights at the domed stadium went out after Austin Pruitt's first pitch to Thairo Estrada leading off the ninth inning. Both teams' television broadcasts also lost power.

The Rays said in a statement that "a failure of a main switch into the building caused the outage."

A statement from us on the delay at Tropicana Field during today's Rays-Yankees game. pic.twitter.com/XeTwKjxfCN

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 12, 2019

New York led 3-1 at the time of the delay. Estrada homered on the second pitch from Pruitt after play resumed.

"I've never been through something like that,'' Estrada said through an interpreter. "You've just got to keep your mind in a positive state.''

The Yankees added three more runs after that on a two-run double by Gio Urshela and a sacrifice fly from Brett Gardner. They went on to win 7-1.

With the victory, New York closed within a half-game of the first-place Rays in the AL East.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said the injury that sent left-hander Derek Holland to the injured list last month was legitimate, and he praised the veteran's competitive spirit the day after Holland said he was sidelined with a "fake injury."

Zaidi said Sunday that medical records back up the legitimacy of Holland's injury, described by the team as a bone bruise on his left index finger. He said there are often differences of opinion between players and management about the severity of injuries.

"The guy gets hit by a truck, he can't walk out on the field. That's, I guess, an unequivocal injury, but there's a lot of gray area beyond that," Zaidi said.

Holland blasted the Giants' front office Saturday night after he learned from manager Bruce Bochy that he was being moved to the bullpen.

"To be honest, I have no idea what they're doing," Holland said. "I don't mean that by Bochy and them. It's more the front office. They keep changing a lot of things. I did a fake injury. I'm not happy about that. But at the end of the day, I'm going to do whatever they ask me to do."

Bochy told reporters on Sunday that he spoke with Holland about his comments and expressed his disappointment that Holland aired his gripes publicly. Bochy also said he planned to talk to the team about Holland's comments.

"You've got to do the right thing," Bochy told reporters. "I wish he'd have vented his frustration in a different way. I know Derek wishes he'd vented his frustration in a different way."

The 32-year-old was placed on the injured list April 29, retroactive to the previous day. In his first outing after being activated, Holland gave up seven runs in 2 2/3 innings Thursday at Colorado amid heavy snowfall.

"I feel equally bad that when he did get back out there, it was in a blizzard," Zaidi said. "I don't know how much of kind of the cold and weather, interacting with whatever lack of feel he has in the finger, contributed to what happened in Colorado."

Zaidi said Holland didn't want to go on the IL last month and was told he would miss only one start.

"Guys want to play," Zaidi said. "I love the fact that Derek wants to be out there. That's one of the reasons we brought him back."

Holland signed a one-year, $7 million contract in January to return to San Francisco for a second year. He is 1-4 with a 6.75 ERA.

Zaidi stood by comments he made to the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday about Holland's injury. He told the newspaper that Holland had an MRI and the decision to put him on the IL was "collaboratively made."

"His use of the word 'fake' probably comes from him feeling he could continue to pitch with it," Zaidi told the Chronicle.

On Sunday, Zaidi said Holland's anger was understandable, given the team's struggles. The Giants are last in the NL West.

"There's a lot of frustration right now. We're not playing as well as we'd like," Zaidi said. "I think fans are frustrated. As a front office we're frustrated. I understand players being frustrated, but we're going to do everything we can every day to get better."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

So George Springer had a pretty good Mother's Day as the Houston Astros beat the Texas Rangers 15-5:

First inning: home run to left-center.

Second inning: line drive single to left field.

Fourth inning: line single to left field.

Fifth inning: ground ball single to right field.

Sixth inning: home run to left-center.

Unfortunately, Springer was on deck for the final out of the eighth inning, so he missed an opportunity to go 6-for-6 for the second time in his career. Joe Morgan is the only other player in Astros history to go 6-for-6 and, according to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, the only players with two 6-for-6 games since 1908 are Doc Cramer and Jim Bottomley.

Springer's second home run clocked 106.4 mph and landed on the train tracks to complete a 5-at-bat, 5-run, 5-hit, 4-RBI afternoon and give him the American League lead with 15 home runs:

Mama said knock you out. #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/dIB4ouHPLq

— Houston Astros (@astros) May 12, 2019

Springer has been on an absolute tear -- .486 with six home runs and 13 RBIs over his past nine games -- and is hitting .321/.400/.660 overall, putting him in the early chase for best player in the American League this season. Springer is a two-time All-Star and had a 5.1-WAR season in 2016, and we saw him rip the Dodgers apart in the 2017 World Series when he homered five times (he has a career .638 slugging percentage in 32 postseason games), but there's the possibility that Springer hasn't quite had that pinnacle season.

He has shown flashes of top-five MVP play, especially in the first half of 2017 when he hit .310 with 27 home runs in 83 games but suffered a quad injury in the second half and settled for 34 home runs in 140 games. Springer was dinged up much of 2018 -- back, thumb, shoulder -- and again played 140 games while hitting .265 with 22 home runs.

He's healthy now and recording career highs in various Statcast categories: exit velocity (91.8, up 3.2 mph from 2018), launch angle (11.0 degrees, up from 9.5 in 2018 and 9.4 in 2017) and hard-hit rate (56.5 percent compared to 37.2 last year and 42.6 in 2017). All those numbers portend his best season yet if he can remain focused and healthy for 150-plus games.

Alex Bregman also had two home runs to help the Astros complete a four-game sweep. (Houston has scored in double digits in five of its past 11 games.) It also gave us this fun factoid: This was only the fourth time a team's Nos. 1 and 2 hitters hit multiple home runs. The first three:

Aug. 25, 1891: Jimmy Ryan and Walt Wilmot for the Chicago Colts (current Cubs franchise) at home vs. Brooklyn

Aug. 22, 2010: Omar Infante and Jason Heyward for the Braves at Wrigley Field

Sept. 26, 2017: Teoscar Hernandez and Josh Donaldson for the Blue Jays at Fenway Park

Astros show off pitching depth: Corbin Martin made his major league debut in this game for the Astros and gave up two runs and three hits in 5⅓ innings while recording nine strikeouts. Martin was Keith Law's No. 48 overall prospect entering the season, a Texas A&M product and second-round pick in 2017 who has advanced quickly with a fastball that reached 98 mph against the Rangers and averaged 95.7.

Show time. @martin_corbin's first career strikeout: 97, paint. #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/3y2VO7lCgb

— Houston Astros (@astros) May 12, 2019

Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Wade Miley have been excellent at the top of the Houston rotation, but AJ Hinch has been looking for some consistent production at the back of the rotation. Martin replaced Collin McHugh in the rotation after McHugh gave up 25 runs and eight home runs in his past 18 innings.

Martin grew up in Hempstead, an hour outside of Houston, and was an Astros fan as a kid. He has even pitched before at Minute Maid Field. With his mom and grandmother in the stands Sunday -- along with other family and friends -- he picked up his first major league victory.

Ryu continues to roll: Dodgers lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu lost his no-hit bid with one out in the eighth inning when Gerardo Parra doubled to deep left-center. He actually should have lost the bid in the sixth inning when Stephen Strasburg lined an apparent base hit to right field, only to have this happen:

This is fine. Everything is fine. pic.twitter.com/oCsgfwUKGb

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 12, 2019

Ryu settled for eight scoreless innings -- on the heels of a four-hit shutout over the Braves in his previous start:

Hyun-jin Ryu is the first non-Kershaw Dodgers lefty to throw back-to-back shutout starts of 8 innings or more since Rick Honeycutt on 6/5-6/10/1986.

— Kazuto Yamazaki (@Kazuto_Yamazaki) May 12, 2019

Ryu has given up one run in 25 innings over his past three starts, lowering his ERA to 1.72, and has a season strikeout-to-walk ratio of 54-to-3. ESPN's Alden Gonzalez just wrote about Ryu, a story in which catcher Russell Martin compared him to Hall of Famer Greg Maddux with his pinpoint location this year. Indeed, his shutout against the Braves required only 93 pitches, a sub-100 pitch shutout referred to as a "Maddux."

As Gonzalez wrote ...

Ryu's success is a product of expertly sequencing five pitches -- fastball, cutter, sinker, curveball, changeup -- and throwing them to all four quadrants of the strike zone, a quality Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes considers "pretty unique." Ryu creates deception with his delivery, pinpoint control and near unpredictability in his pitch selection.

Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc spent the 2018 season as a strategist with the division-rival Arizona Diamondbacks and found it almost impossible to craft game plans for Ryu.

"He doesn't have any consistent tendencies," Van Scoyoc said. "He knows how to pitch, he knows how to change speeds, and I think he reads the hitters very well. Even if he has a plan, he'll deviate from it. There's just not anything consistent about how he attacks each guy."

Of course, Ryu has a long list of injuries during his six seasons with the Dodgers, missing all of 2015, pitching in only one game in 2016 and making only 15 starts last season because of a groin strain. After he threw a career-high 116 pitches in the 6-0 victory over the Nationals, the Dodgers might want to give him an extra day of rest before his next start. No team is more cautious with its starting pitchers than the Dodgers.

Yankees, Red Sox close in on Rays: The Rays have had a great start at 24-15, they've given up the fewest runs in the majors, the Yankees have battled a bazillion injuries and the Red Sox got off to a dreadful start and ... yet. The AL East now looks like this after Masahiro Tanaka outdueled Blake Snell and the Red Sox pounded the Mariners for the third game in row:

Rays: --
Yankees: ½ game back
Red Sox: 3 games back

Tanaka threw only 73 pitches in seven innings, giving up five hits and one run with seven K's.

Just lights out stuff: https://t.co/4hg2qrzgqS

Powered by @Biofreeze pic.twitter.com/vM065s4P7p

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 12, 2019

Compare that to Snell, who was more dominant with 12 strikeouts in 5⅔ innings but threw 96 pitches and had a relatively early exit (the Yankees tacked on five runs against the Tampa bullpen). As good as the Rays have been, we know this division is likely to come down to head-to-head action against the big, bad rivals, and they're now 1-5 at home against the two clubs.

Since their 6-13 start, the Red Sox have gone 16-6, including 11-2 over their past 13 games. They scored 34 runs in the series against Seattle. In those first 19 games, the Red Sox were outscored by 42 runs. In the next 22, they outscored their opponents by 69 runs. It appears the World Series hangover has ended.

Bumgarner trade stuff: The Giants beat the Reds 6-5 with two runs in the eighth inning as Madison Bumgarner picked up a no-decision with four runs allowed (two earned) in six innings. He gave up a home run to Yasiel Puig and reacted in classic Bumgarner fashion after the game: "He's a quick study. It only took him seven years to learn how to hit that pitch."

On Saturday, Ken Rosenthal tweeted that Bumgarner had submitted a list of eight teams he can block a trade to: Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies and Cardinals.

As Rosenthal pointed out, that's a list of teams most likely to be interested in Bumgarner, so it's more a strategic ploy on Bumgarner's part to gain some leverage if the Giants do look to trade him. That could include blocking a trade to a team he doesn't want to play for in favor of one he prefers. Note that a trade isn't necessarily a bad thing for Bumgarner since players traded during the season are not eligible to receive a qualifying offer in free agency (which could hurt a player's value in free agency as might be the case with Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel).

Strategic move of the day: The Pirates are carrying 13 pitchers on their active roster and, as I've written before, carrying only four bench players in the National League inevitably leaves the manager's hands tied. Most managers refuse to use their backup catcher (even though the odds of an injury that would require the use of a non-catcher behind the plate are exceedingly slim) so that means you're really playing with three bench players unless circumstances finally require using the backup catcher, usually only in extra innings to pinch hit.

The Cardinals led the Pirates 6-3 in the sixth inning with the Pirates batting, one out, nobody on base and the pitcher up. A pretty low-leverage situation, but one you would certainly want to send up a position player to hopefully start a rally. Instead, with a limited bench, Clint Hurdle sent up pitcher Joe Musgrove to hit. He grounded out and the Pirates went down 1-2-3.

Pittsburgh rallied to win the game anyway, scoring five in the seventh and two in the eighth. In the seventh, after Josh Bell tied the score with a three-run homer, Melky Cabrera later hit for shortstop Cole Tucker and walked with two outs. Adam Frazier then hit for the pitcher and doubled in two runs:

Adam doing pinch hitter type things. pic.twitter.com/QVpC0m5MXr

— Pirates (@Pirates) May 12, 2019

So by not using one of his pinch hitters in the sixth, Hurdle still had two available in the seventh. I still don't know if it was the right decision, but on this day it worked.

Bell, by the way, continues to rake, going 4-for-5 with five RBIs, and is now hitting .319/.389/.659. The numbers are legit with more line drives, a lower ground ball rate and increased average exit velocity -- from 90 mph last year to 94.6, which ranks fifth in the majors.

I don't know exactly what to make of the Pirates; they're now tied with the Cardinals in the standings, but the Cardinals have a 55-run differential advantage. That's one reason FanGraphs projects the Cardinals with a 40 percent chance to make the playoffs and the Pirates at 11 percent. The Pirates even have an eight-game losing streak milked into their 22-19 record. Of course, the Cardinals won the opener of this four-game series 17-4 ... but the Pirates won the next three, including 2-1 wins on Friday and Saturday.

Britain's Dan Evans and Cameron Norrie both recorded victories to qualify for the Italian Open main draw.

Evans, ranked 81st in the world, overcame top seed and Monte Carlo Masters finalist Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 7-5 6-3.

British number two Norrie saved two match points to beat Chile's Nicolas Jarry 6-3 4-6 7-6 (8-6).

They join British number one Kyle Edmund - who plays Spain's Fernando Verdasco in the first round - in Rome.

Evans' victory over Lajovic was a career-best on clay, with Lajovic ranked 57 places above him.

The 28-year-old beat Dutch tenth seed Robin Haase 6-2 6-4 in the first round of qualifying, while 45th-ranked Norrie, 23, beat Germany's Peter Gojowczyk 5-7 7-5 6-3.

World number one Novak Djokovic, defending champion Rafael Nadal and 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer are all in the Rome draw.

World number one Novak Djokovic beat a tired-looking Stefanos Tsitsipas to win the Madrid Open for a third time.

The Serbian, 31, beat Rafael Nadal's semi-final conqueror 6-3 6-4 in one hour 32 minutes to earn a record-equalling 33rd Masters 1000 title.

Djokovic raced into a 3-0 lead in the opening set after breaking the 20-year-old Greek in the second game.

And he broke in the ninth game of the second set to ensure he didn't drop a set all tournament.

"I wasn't playing my best tennis after the Australian Open so I was looking to regain momentum," Djokovic told Sky Sports. "I played some of my best tennis here."

On his opponent, he added: "He's very talented, he beat Rafa yesterday, he had a late night and he wasn't as dynamic in his movement and that was probably due to his long match."

Tsitsipas, who beat Roger Federer at the Australian Open, has had a superb season and in addition to his win over Nadal, had won the previous match against Djokovic at the Rogers Cup in Toronto last August.

But he struggled to match the 15-time Grand Slam champion, who had superior energy after overcoming Austrian Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals.

More to follow.