Lindsey Vonn wins No. 63, breaks record (video)

Lindsey Vonn
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Lindsey Vonn wasted no time. She broke the record for women’s Alpine skiing World Cup victories on Monday, one day after tying the mark in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

And Tiger Woods was there to see it.

Vonn easily prevailed in a super-G for her 63rd career race win, clocking 1 minute, 27.03 seconds. Second-place Austrian Anna Fenninger, the Olympic super-G champion, was .85 slower, followed by Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather.

Vonn moved past Annemarie Moser-Proell for women’s World Cup victories, one day after she drew level with the retired Austrian legend in a Cortina downhill. (more comparing Moser-Proell and Vonn’s careers here)

“I feel a lot lighter,” Vonn told media in Cortina. “I have a lot less pressure.”

Boyfriend Woods, whom Vonn said watched her record-tying race on the Internet from Florida on Sunday, embraced her in the finish area Monday.

“My dad said, ‘Hey, look, I found someone,'” Vonn said on TODAY.

He showed up without telling Vonn, incognito with a mask covering most of his face, but she recognized him.

“I knew it was him immediately,” Vonn said. “He loves that stupid mask.”

Vonn exclaimed “No way!” when she saw him, according to The Associated Press.

“I’m so surprised that he’s here,” Vonn said of Woods, who last saw her race on Dec. 21, 2013, in Val d’Isere, France, when she skied off course in her last race before ending her comeback bid for the 2014 Olympics. “This is a much better memory [than Val d’Isere] that we can have forever.”

Woods joined a large group of Vonn’s family who had been in Cortina all weekend.

source: Getty Images
Lindsey Vonn and Tiger Woods embrace after the race. (Getty Images)

“He told everyone to keep it a secret,” Vonn said. “Normally no one can keep a secret in my family.”

It’s another remarkable achievement for Vonn, the 2010 Olympic downhill gold medalist and four-time World Cup overall champion returning from blowing out her right knee at the 2013 World Championships.

NBC will air a documentary on Vonn’s comeback Sunday.

“I was a kid, but I think I said I want to be the greatest ski racer ever,” Vonn said. “As an adult, I didn’t really know if it would ever come true. It seems I’m getting closer to that point.”

On Monday, Vonn won for the fourth time in eight races since December, giving her more wins than any other woman this season. It marked her first super-G victory since Dec. 8, 2012.

She is ranked fourth in the overall standings, 434 points behind Tina Maze (100 points are awarded for a win). Maze has raced 18 times this season.

What’s next for Vonn?

More World Cup races next weekend and the World Championships at home in Vail/Beaver Creek, Colo., in February.

In the long term, the overall wins record. Swede Ingemar Stenmark won 86 races in his storied career.

“We just got done talking about one record, I don’t want to talk about another one,” Vonn joked. “I’m just going to try to ski my best, and we’ll see what happens. Eighty-six is a long, long ways away. You never know, but I’m just going to focus on tomorrow.”

Vonn provided more detail in past interviews.

“I’ve already been thinking about that [men’s record],” Vonn said in December 2013, according to Red Bulletin. “My current plan is to keep going until the 2015 World Cup. Then I’ll see how far away I am from that number and then I’ll decide what to do, whether I’ll keep going in every discipline or maybe just downhill and super-G and concentrate on that record.”

In March 2012, when she had 53 World Cup wins, the Denver Post reported Vonn “shrugs off the notion of breaking that record, as if it’s the one mark that will never be touched.”

In April 2012, Vonn told Real Vail of Stenmark’s record, “That’s definitely something to look forward to in the future, but right now my goals are just to try to keep winning … I don’t know if it’s feasible to be able to break those records or not.”

Vonn averaged 10 victories per season from 2009 through 2012. If she gets back on that pace and stays healthy, she would need to ski into the 2016-17 World Cup season to pass Stenmark around age 32.

Vonn, 30, targets skiing through the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics, but she may never ski slalom again and hasn’t skied a giant slalom yet in her comeback. So getting back to 10 victories per season may be tough.

“Records are the only thing that remain of an athlete, the only thing that people will remember,” Vonn told Red Bulletin in December 2013. “If I want to ensure that people don’t forget me, I can only stop once I’ve set the bar as high as possible for anyone coming after me. That means that as long as I can keep winning I’ll keep skiing. Essentially it’s about what I leave behind, and that means statistics, records.”

Tiger Woods plans to attend World Alpine Skiing Championships

French Open doubles team disqualified after tennis ball hits ball girl

2023 French Open
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French Open doubles player Miyu Kato and her partner were forced to forfeit a match when Kato accidentally hit a ball girl in the neck with a ball after a point on Sunday.

In the second set on Court 14 at Roland Garros, Kato took a swing with her racket and the ball flew toward the ball kid, who was not looking in the player’s direction while heading off the court.

At first, chair umpire Alexandre Juge only issued a warning to Kato. But after tournament referee Remy Azemar and Grand Slam supervisor Wayne McEwen went to Court 14 to look into what happened, Kato and her partner, Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia, were disqualified.

That made Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain the winners of the match.

“It’s just a bad situation for everyone,” Bouzkova said. “But it’s kind of something that, I guess, is taken by the rules, as it is, even though it’s very unfortunate for them. … At the end of the day, it was the referee’s decision.”

Bouzkova said she did not see the ball hit the ball girl, but “she was crying for like 15 minutes.”

She said one of the officials said the ball “has to do some kind of harm to the person affected” and that “at first, (Juge) didn’t see that.”

Bouzkova said she and Sorribes Tormo told Juge “to look into it more and ask our opponents what they think happened.”

During Coco Gauff’s 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-1 singles victory over Mirra Andreeva on Saturday, Andreev swatted a ball into the Court Suzanne Lenglen stands after dropping a point in the first set. Andreev was given a warning by the chair umpire for unsportsmanlike conduct but no further penalty.

“I heard about that. Didn’t see it,” Bouzkova said. “I guess it just depends on the circumstances and the given situation as it happens. … It is difficult, for sure.

In the quarterfinals, Bouzkova and Sorribes Tormo will face Ellen Perez of Australia and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the United States.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

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Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz exit French Open, leaving no U.S. men

Frances Tiafoe French Open
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Frances Tiafoe kept coming oh so close to extending his French Open match against Alexander Zverev: 12 times Saturday night, the American was two points from forcing things to a fifth set.

Yet the 12th-seeded Tiafoe never got closer than that.

Instead, the 22nd-seeded Zverev finished out his 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-1, 7-6 (5) victory after more than 3 1/2 hours in Court Philippe Chatrier to reach the fourth round. With Tiafoe’s exit, none of the 16 men from the United States who were in the bracket at the start of the tournament are still in the field.

“I mean, for the majority of the match, I felt like I was in control,” said Tiafoe, a 25-year-old from Maryland who fell to 1-7 against Zverev.

“It’s just tough,” he said about a half-hour after his loss ended, rubbing his face with his hand. “I should be playing the fifth right now.”

Two other American men lost earlier Saturday: No. 9 seed Taylor Fritz and unseeded Marcos Giron.

No. 23 Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina beat Fritz 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, and Nicolas Jarry of Chile eliminated Giron 6-2, 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-3.

There are three U.S women remaining: No. 6 Coco Gauff, Sloane Stephens and Bernarda Pera.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

It is the second year in a row that zero men from the United States will participate in the fourth round at Roland Garros. If nothing else, it stands as a symbolic step back for the group after what seemed to be a couple of breakthrough showings at the past two majors.

For Tiafoe, getting to the fourth round is never the goal.

“I want to win the trophy,” he said.

Remember: No American man has won any Grand Slam title since Andy Roddick at the 2003 U.S. Open. The French Open has been the least successful major in that stretch with no U.S. men reaching the quarterfinals since Andre Agassi in 2003.

But Tiafoe beat Rafael Nadal in the fourth round of the U.S. Open along the way to getting to the semifinals there last September, the first time in 16 years the host nation had a representative in the men’s final four at Flushing Meadows.

Then, at the Australian Open this January, Tommy Paul, Sebastian Korda and Ben Shelton became the first trio of Americans in the men’s quarterfinals in Melbourne since 2000. Paul made it a step beyond that, to the semifinals.

After that came this benchmark: 10 Americans were ranked in the ATP’s Top 50, something that last happened in June 1995.

On Saturday, after putting aside a whiffed over-the-shoulder volley — he leaned atop the net for a moment in disbelief — Tiafoe served for the fourth set at 5-3, but couldn’t seal the deal.

In that game, and the next, and later on, too, including at 5-all in the tiebreaker, he would come within two points of owning that set.

Each time, Zverev claimed the very next point. When Tiafoe sent a forehand wide to end it, Zverev let out two big yells. Then the two, who have been pals for about 15 years, met for a warm embrace at the net, and Zverev placed his hand atop Tiafoe’s head.

“He’s one of my best friends on tour,” said Zverev, a German who twice has reached the semifinals on the red clay of Paris, “but on the court, I’m trying to win.”

At the 2022 French Open, Zverev tore ligaments in his right ankle while playing Nadal in the semifinals and had to stop.

“It’s been definitely the hardest year of my life, that’s for sure,” Zverev said. “I love tennis more than anything in the world.”

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