Serena Williams seeded 17th at U.S. Open

By Nick ZaccardiAug 21, 2018, 12:00 PM EDT

Serena Williams has been seeded 17th at the U.S. Open, nine spots higher than her WTA ranking as she returns from childbirth.

The rest of the women’s and men’s singles seeds follow WTA and ATP rankings. Williams is seeded one spot below older sister Venus, a two-time U.S. Open winner.

Williams goes for her seventh U.S. Open title beginning next week. She eyes her 24th Grand Slam singles title overall, which would tie Margaret Court‘s record.

Williams returned to the WTA Tour in March after Sept. 1 childbirth followed by multiple surgeries. She made the fourth round of the French Open in May and June before withdrawing with a pectoral muscle injury.

She then reached the Wimbledon final, losing in straight sets to German Angelique Kerber.

Williams has lost two of her three matches since Wimbledon in U.S. hard-court tournaments.

The French Open did not give Williams a seed when she was ranked No. 453 due to the maternity leave. Wimbledon seeded Williams 25th when she was ranked No. 183.

The U.S. Open would “revise the seedings if pregnancy is a factor in the current rankings of a player,” USTA president and chairwoman Katrina Adams said in June, according to The New York Times.

2018 US Open Women’s Singles Seeds

1. Simona Halep, Romania

2. Caroline Wozniacki, Denmark

3. Sloane Stephens, United States

4. Angelique Kerber, Germany

5. Petra Kvitova, Czech Republic

6. Caroline Garcia, France

7. Elina Svitolina, Ukraine

8. Karolina Pliskova, Czech Republic

9. Julia Goerges, Germany

10. Jelena Ostapenko, Latvia

11. Daria Kasatkina, Russia

12. Garbiñe Muguruza, Spain

13. Kiki Bertens, Netherlands

14. Madison Keys, United States

15. Elise Mertens, Belgium

16. Venus Williams, United States

17. Serena Williams, United States

18. Ashleigh Barty, Australia

19. Anastasija Sevastova, Latvia

20. Naomi Osaka, Japan

21. Mihaela Buzarnescu, Romania

22. Maria Sharapova, Russia

23. Barbora Strycova, Czech Republic

24. CoCo Vandeweghe, United States

25. Daria Gavrilova, Australia

26. Aryna Sabalenka, Belarus

27. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Russia

28. Anett Kontaveit, Estonia

29. Dominika Cibulkova, Slovakia

30. Carla Suarez Navarro, Spain

31. Magdalena Rybarikova, Slovakia

32. Maria Sakkari, Greece

2018 US Open Men’s Singles Seeds

1. Rafael Nadal, Spain

2. Roger Federer, Switzerland

3. Juan Martin del Potro, Argentina

4. Alexander Zverev, Germany

5. Kevin Anderson, South Africa

6. Novak Djokovic, Serbia

7. Marin Cilic, Croatia

8. Grigor Dimitrov, Bulgaria

9. Dominic Thiem, Austria

10. David Goffin, Belgium

11. John Isner, United States

12. Pablo Carreno Busta, Spain

13. Diego Schwartzman, Argentina

14. Fabio Fognini, Italy

15. Stefanos Tsitsipas, Greece

16. Kyle Edmund, Great Britain

17. Lucas Pouille, France

18. Jack Sock, United States

19. Roberto Bautista Agut, Spain

20. Borna Coric, Croatia

21. Kei Nishikori, Japan

22. Marco Cecchinato, Italy

23. Hyeon Chung, South Korea

24. Damir Dzumhur, Bosnia and Herzegovina

25. Milos Raonic, Canada

26. Richard Gasquet, France

27. Karen Khachanov, Russia

28. Denis Shapovalov, Canada

29. Adrian Mannarino, France

30. Nick Kyrgios, Australia

31. Fernando Verdasco, Spain

32. Filip Krajinovic, Serbia

Elena Fanchini, medal-winning Alpine skier, dies at 37

Associated PressFeb 8, 2023, 2:45 PM EST

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Italian skier Elena Fanchini, whose career was cut short by a tumor, has died. She was 37.

Fanchini passed away Wednesday at her home in Solato, near Brescia, the Italian Winter Sports Federation announced.

Fanchini died on the same day that fellow Italian Marta Bassino won the super-G at the world championships in Meribel, France; and two days after Federica Brignone — another former teammate — claimed gold in combined.

Sofia Goggia, who is the favorite for Saturday’s downhill, dedicated her win in Cortina d’Ampezzo last month to Fanchini.

Fanchini last raced in December 2017. She was cleared to return to train nearly a year later but never made it fully back, and her condition grew worse in recent months.

Fanchini won a silver medal in downhill at the 2005 World Championships and also won two World Cup races in her career — both in downhill.

She missed the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics because of her condition.

Fanchini’s younger sisters Nadia and Sabrina were also World Cup racers.

USA Boxing to skip world championships

By OlympicTalkFeb 8, 2023, 12:30 PM EST

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USA Boxing will not send boxers to this year’s men’s and women’s world championships, citing “the ongoing failures” of the IBA, the sport’s international governing body, that put boxing’s place on the Olympic program at risk.

The Washington Post first reported the decision.

In a letter to its members, USA Boxing Executive Director Mike McAtee listed many factors that led to the decision, including IBA governance issues, financial irregularities and transparency and that Russian and Belarusian boxers are allowed to compete with their flags.

IBA lifted its ban on Russian and Belarusian boxers in October and said it would allow their flags and anthems to return, too.

The IOC has not shifted from its recommendation to international sports federations last February that Russian and Belarusian athletes be barred, though the IOC and Olympic sports officials have been exploring whether those athletes could return without national symbols.

USA Boxing said that Russian boxers have competed at an IBA event in Morocco this month with their flags and are expected to compete at this year’s world championships under their flags.

“While sport is intended to be politically neutral, many boxers, coaches and other representatives of the Ukrainian boxing community were killed as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, including coach Mykhaylo Korenovsky who was killed when a Russian missile hit an apartment block in January 2023,” according to the USA Boxing letter. “Ukraine’s sports infrastructure, including numerous boxing gyms, has been devastated by Russian aggression.”

McAtee added later that USA Boxing would still not send athletes to worlds even if Russians and Belarusians were competing as neutrals and without their flags.

“USA Boxing’s decision is based on the ‘totality of all of the factors,'” he said in an emailed response. “Third party oversite and fairness in the field of play is the most important factor.”

A message has been sent to the IBA seeking comment on USA Boxing’s decision.

The women’s world championships are in March in India. The men’s world championships are in May in Uzbekistan. They do not count toward 2024 Olympic qualifying.

In December, the IOC said recent IBA decisions could lead to “the cancellation of boxing” for the 2024 Paris Games.

Some of the already reported governance issues led to the IOC stripping IBA — then known as AIBA — of its Olympic recognition in 2019. AIBA had suspended all 36 referees and judges used at the 2016 Rio Olympics pending an investigation into a possible judging scandal, one that found that some medal bouts were fixed by “complicit and compliant” referees and judges.

The IOC ran the Tokyo Olympic boxing competition.

Boxing was not included on the initial program for the 2028 Los Angeles Games announced in December 2021, though it could still be added. The IBA must address concerns “around its governance, its financial transparency and sustainability and the integrity of its refereeing and judging processes,” IOC President Thomas Bach said then.

This past June, the IOC said IBA would not run qualifying competitions for the 2024 Paris Games.

In September, the IOC said it was “extremely concerned” about the Olympic future of boxing after an IBA extraordinary congress overwhelmingly backed Russian Umar Kremlev to remain as its president rather than hold an election.

Kremlev was re-elected in May after an opponent, Boris van der Vorst of the Netherlands, was barred from running against him. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in June that van der Vorst should have been eligible to run against Kremlev, but the IBA group still decided not to hold a new election.

Last May, Rashida Ellis became the first U.S. woman to win a world boxing title at an Olympic weight since Claressa Shields in 2016, taking the 60kg lightweight crown in Istanbul. In Tokyo, Ellis lost 3-0 in her opening bout in her Olympic debut.

At the last men’s worlds in 2021, Robby Gonzales and Jahmal Harvey became the first U.S. men to win an Olympic or world title since 2007, ending the longest American men’s drought since World War II.

The Associated Press and NBC Olympic research contributed to this report.

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