Former No. 1-ranked player Simona Halep has been provisionally suspended by the International Tennis Integrity Agency and faces a possible four-year ban from tennis after failing a drug test during the US Open.
The ITIA announced the suspension for Halep, a two-time Grand Slam champion who is currently No. 9 in the WTA rankings, on Friday, saying she tested positive for the banned substance roxadustat.
Saying she was “confused and betrayed” by the situation, Halep tweeted that she would start a “fight for the truth” and noted that her test showed “an extremely low quantity.”
“I will fight until the end to prove that I never knowingly took any prohibited substance and I have faith that sooner or later, the truth will come out,” Halep wrote.
pic.twitter.com/bhS2B2ovzS
— Simona Halep (@Simona_Halep) October 21, 2022
Under the World Anti-Doping Code, Halep faces a ban of up to four years for a positive test for a substance such as roxadustat. Athletes can earn a reduction in their ban, likely to three years, if they quickly admit an offense and accept their sanction.
Tennis authorities will handle Halep’s case, and any ruling can be challenged by the World Anti-Doping Agency in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
During a provisional suspension, a tennis player is ineligible to compete in, or attend, any sanctioned events.
Roxadustat is a drug approved for medical use in the European Union to treat the symptoms of anemia caused by chronic kidney failure. According to the EU’s medicines agency, which approved roxadustat last year, it stimulates the body to produce more of the natural hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, which has long been a doping product favored by cyclists and distance runners.
The 31-year-old Romanian player recently announced she was taking the rest of this season off after having nose surgery to improve her breathing. She considered retiring early this year after a series of injuries but then said she felt rejuvenated after teaming up in April with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who used to work with Serena Williams.
Representatives for the U.S. Tennis Association and Mouratoglou declined comment.
Halep was seeded No. 7 at the US Open when she lost to Daria Snigur of Ukraine 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 on Aug. 30. She won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, beating 23-time major champion Williams in the final at the All England Club.
EAGAN, Minn. — USA Curling says CEO Jeff Plush “acted in accordance with prioritizing the safety of athletes” during his tenure as leader of the National Women’s Soccer League, where an investigation uncovered years of systemic emotional abuse and sexual misconduct.
The curling board met Monday after a report on the independent investigation into the abuses in women’s soccer.
The soccer investigation found Plush, who was commissioner of the NWSL from 2014 to 2017, was aware of allegations of sexual harassment and coercion against Portland Thorns coach Paul Riley, but did not do anything to prevent Riley from continuing to coach in the league. Former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, who led the soccer investigation, said Plush did not respond to requests for an interview.
In a news release, the curling board said it would “navigate forward in a way that reviews fact and prioritizes safety for all.”
U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland sent a letter to staff that said the federation was in contact with USA Curling about the investigations.
“We understand they are reviewing the findings of this investigation as well as the findings of their own investigation conducted previously” about Plush’s role at NWSL, Hirshland wrote.
The USOPC was forced into sweeping reforms in the wake of sexual abuse scandals, including that former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually abused hundreds of female gymnasts.
“Our resolve to make Olympic and Paralympic sport participation safe for everyone guides our work every day,” Hirshland said. “And yet we know, this work is never done.”
The report on the soccer investigation said Thorns player Mana Shim informed Plush in 2015 about Riley’s advances, as well as his retaliation when she asked him to stop. Plush forwarded Shim’s email to U.S. Soccer, but the league took no action against Riley.
SYDNEY — Breanna Stewart and the United States used a dominant defensive effort to beat Canada and reach the gold-medal game of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup for the fourth consecutive tournament.
Stewart scored 17 points and the Americans raced out to an early lead to put away Canada 83-43 on Friday. The 43 points was the fewest scored in a semifinal game in World Cup history.
“Canada has been playing really well all tournament, and the goal was just to come out there and really limit them,” said U.S. forward Alyssa Thomas. “We were really locked in from the jump with our game plan.”
The Americans will face China, who beat Australia 61-59 in the second semifinal, for the gold
“Our goal was to win a gold medal, and we’re in position to do that,” U.S. coach Cheryl Reeve said.
The U.S. (7-0), which is on a record pace for points and margin of victory in the tournament, took control of the game early, scoring the first 15 points. The Americans contested every shot on the defensive end as the Canadians missed their first nine attempts from the field. On the offensive end, Stewart, Thomas and A’ja Wilson basically got any shot they wanted.
“I think after that punch, it really took the air out of them,” Thomas said. “They didn’t know what to do with their offense anymore after that.”
Laeticia Amihere, who plays at South Carolina for former U.S. coach Dawn Staley, finally got Canada on the board nearly 5 minutes into the game by making a driving layup.
By the end of the quarter, the U.S. led 27-7. Canada had committed four turnovers — the same number the team had against Puerto Rico in the quarterfinals, which was the lowest total in a game in 30 years.
The Americans were up 45-21 at the half, and the lead kept expanding in the final 20 minutes. The win was the biggest margin for the U.S. in the medal round, topping the 36-point victory over Spain in the 2010 World Cup.
Canada (5-2) advanced to the medal round for the first time since 1986 and has a chance to win its first medal since taking the bronze that year.
“We didn’t get it done today, but what we’re going to do is take this with what we learned today and how we can turn it up tomorrow,” Canada captain Natalie Achonwa said. “It’s still a game for a medal, and it’s just as important for us.”
The U.S. has won seven of the eight meetings with Canada in the World Cup, although the most recent previous one came in 2010. The lone victory for Canada came in 1975.
The victory was the 29th in a row in World Cup play for the Americans, who haven’t lost since the 2006 semifinals against Russia. The Soviet Union holds the World Cup record with 56 straight wins from 1959 to 1986. This is only the second time in the Americans’ storied history they’ve reached four consecutive gold-medal contests. They also did it 1979-90, winning three times.
This U.S. team, which has so many new faces on it, is on pace to break many of the team’s records, including scoring margin and points per game. The Americans also continued to dominate the paint even without 6-foot-8 Brittney Griner, outscoring their opponents by an average of 55-24.
Amihere led Canada with eight points.
Record breaking
Canada’s low point total broke the mark of 53 that South Korea scored against Russia in 2002.
“We’re starting to build that identity,” Wilson said of the defensive effort. “We’re quick and scrappy, and I think that’s our identity.”
The U.S. is averaging 101 points a game. The team’s best mark ever coming into the tournament was 99.1, set in 1994.
Still recovering
Kahleah Copper sat out after injuring her left hip in the win over Serbia in the quarterfinals. Copper landed hard on her hip driving to the basket and had to be helped off the court. She hopes to play Saturday. Betnijah Laney, who also got hurt in the Serbia game, did play against Canada.
Up next
Canada: Plays Australia for bronze medal on Saturday.
M.A. Voepel covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball, and other college sports for espnW. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.
UNCASVILLE, Conn. — With their backs against the wall (again) in the WNBA playoffs, the Connecticut Sun found another gear. Leading the way was the player they call “the Machine,” Alyssa Thomas.
She had the first triple-double in WNBA Finals history Thursday as the Sun beat the Las Vegas Aces 105-76 in Game 3 of the best-of-five series after losing the first two games out on the famed Strip. If anyone thought the Sun would roll over for an Aces sweep … well, no one who follows the WNBA thought that. It’s just not the Sun’s personality.
They lost a close Game 1 on Sunday and a not-so-close Game 2 on Tuesday at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas. But back home at Mohegan Sun Arena in front of their fans, the Sun summoned the mojo they needed to force Game 4, which will be this Sunday here in Connecticut (4 p.m. ET, ESPN).
“If you could encapsulate Connecticut, it’s physical and very resilient,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said of the Sun. “They have kind of a battle-type mentality, and we didn’t match that tonight, in any category. They just kicked our ass in every way possible.”
Of Thomas, who finished with 16 points, 15 rebounds and 11 assists, Hammon said, “She’s a beast. I went to a UFC fight the other night; I would not want to get in the cage with her. She is just tough. Tough, tough, tough. And then a playmaker.”
The 6-foot-2 Thomas, 30, was the No. 4 pick in the 2014 WNBA draft out of Maryland, which she led to the women’s Final Four her senior year.
Thomas is a difficult — if not impossible — player to compare to anyone else in the WNBA. Her longtime shoulder injuries (torn labrums in both that have not been surgically repaired) keep her from having an actual jump shot, but that doesn’t matter. Thomas has figured out her own ways to get the ball in the hoop, and she’s so crafty and strong, it’s hard to stop her.
Thomas is essentially a point forward, with how much she handles the ball and looks to create opportunities for her teammates. And rebounding? Well, as Hammon said, there’s nothing about Thomas that makes you think you will outmuscle or outhustle her.
“What’s remarkable is that’s every day. She doesn’t know how else to play,” Sun coach Curt Miller said of Thomas’ energy. “She’s probably the toughest player I’ve ever coached, but she’s the most consistent player in terms of effort that I’ve ever been around.”
Consistency was lacking in some regards for the Sun in the first two games of the Finals, which put them in a win-or-go-home situation. But they faced that in the first round when they had to go to Dallas to close out a best-of-three series and in the semifinals and when they beat defending champion Chicago twice on the Sky’s homecourt, including in the deciding Game 5.
Thursday, the Aces got off to a 9-2 start, but that was the extent of their control of this game. As if a switch was flipped, the Sun’s energy level skyrocketed and they led 34-19 after the first quarter. By game’s end, all the Sun’s starters had scored in double figures, led by 2021 MVP Jonquel Jones with 20 points.
DeWanna Bonner, after going 2 of 18 from the field in the first two games of the Finals, went 8 of 15 Thursday for 18 points, along with helping hold Aces guard Chelsea Gray to 11 points.
But the star of the night was Thomas, whose triple-double was her third of this season, also a WNBA record. There have been 19 triple-doubles in WNBA history — three in the playoffs, the others by Chicago’s Courtney Vandersloot and Houston’s Sheryl Swoopes — but they are becoming much less rare than they used to be. Eight of the 19 have come this season, and two were last season.
That reflects more positionless play, which the WNBA is seeing just as the NBA has been. In Thomas’ case, it’s about her ability to be able to play both as a true post but also as someone who can float around and just make things happen for herself or her teammates.
And on a night when the Sun’s season could have been over, Thomas led the way in willing it to continue.
“For me, I approached the game like I approached any other game,” Thomas said. “I think we just wanted it. We’ve been struggling offensively. We haven’t really been hitting shots and tonight we came out ready.”
NEW YORK — Caroline Garcia never really let Coco Gauff — or the crowd — get fully involved in their US Open quarterfinal Tuesday night.
From early on, Garcia played high-stakes tennis and put strokes where she wanted, sometimes right at Gauff’s feet, sometimes well out of reach. In contrast to the early success Gauff, still just 18, has experienced, it’s been a long journey for Garcia, who now gets to play in the first Grand Slam semifinal of her career at age 28.
The 17th-seeded Garcia took charge at the start and never relented in a 6-3, 6-4 victory over the 12th-seeded Gauff at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I just go for my shots,” Garcia said, “even when I’m stressed.”
She had lost both of her two previous matches against Gauff, who was the runner-up at the French Open in June, but was by far the better player this time.
“Her level was great and I knew it was going to be great coming in, and I feel like I didn’t play at the level I needed to come out with the win today — but overall I’m super proud of myself for this tournament,” Gauff said. “But I’m hungry for more, so maybe next year.”
Garcia, who is from France, hasn’t ceded a set at Flushing Meadows so far this year and stretched her winning streak to 13 matches overall, solidifying her status as someone playing as well as anyone in women’s tennis at the moment.
She finished last season ranked 74th, but now is projected to rise into the top 10 next week.
“The last couple of months,” Garcia said, “I feel healthy again.”
She will face Wimbledon runner-up Ons Jabeur of Tunisia on Thursday with a berth in the final at stake.
“I’m looking forward to the next challenge and what I can achieve,” Garcia said.
Jabeur became the first woman representing an African nation to make the semifinals at the US Open during the professional era with a 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory over the player who beat Serena Williams in the third round, Ajla Tomljanovic.
Jabeur said her run to the title match at the All England Club allowed her to “believe more in myself” and realize, “I had it in me that I can win a Grand Slam.”
Tomljanovic exchanged a lengthy hug at the net with Jabeur, who is a close friend, following the match.
“Just trying to do my job and hopefully I inspire more and more generations from Africa,” Jabeur said. “It really means a lot to me.”
In the Garcia versus Gauff match, it was 4-0 merely 17 minutes in, as spectators were still filing in. All in all, there was less vociferous support for Gauff than she heard in her previous victory in Ashe.
During that fairly perfect start, Garcia capped one 17-stroke exchange with a down-the-line forehand winner. She raised a fist and held that pose while looking at her guest box, where her father and coach were on their feet. It was a sequence that would be repeated.
Both are big servers: Gauff hit the fastest by a woman in the tournament this year, at 128 mph; Garcia leads the WTA in aces in 2022. Each delivered one at 117 mph in her opening service game.
But it was Garcia who read Gauff’s offerings far more effectively. Garcia often returned deep enough to seemingly startle Gauff, who rushed some responses. After one of several attempted replies by Gauff settled in the net, she jutted her racket toward the ground, as if to indicate: “Why do these keep landing right there?!”
That sort of constant pressure, and Garcia’s tendency to stay way inside the baseline to receive second serves, could have contributed to Gauff’s six double faults.
Garcia also quickly gained the upper hand from the baseline with her clean, crisp strokes. During a brief TV interview on the way from the locker room to the court, Garcia had said she hoped to be “more aggressive.”
She certainly was.
In a nod to her volleying expertise — something she has displayed in doubles, where she has won two Grand Slam titles with French partner Kristina Mladenovic — Garcia moved forward whenever an opening presented itself. She wound up winning 13 of 16 points when she went to the net.
Rather than fearing, and trying to stay away from, Gauff’s stronger backhand side, Garcia went after it, drawing repeated mistakes.
“I had a lot of unforced errors today; I think I had a couple of balls where I could have finished the point, especially when she was coming to the net — I missed a lot of passing shots when they were open,” Gauff said. “I think I just need to cut back on [the unforced errors], especially when you’re playing an aggressive player like Caroline — you can’t make that many unforced errors.”
Gauff occasionally would show a bit of frustration at her play, slapping herself on the thigh or knocking her racket on a courtside towel holder. She was trying to become the youngest American woman in the US Open semifinals since Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam title in New York in 1999 at age 17.
Garcia would not allow it.
The Associated Press and ESPN Stats & Information contributed to this report.
Canada defeated Team USA 2-1 in the IIHF women’s world championship final on Sunday in Denmark, as hockey’s greatest rivalry added another thrilling chapter.
Goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens made 19 saves in the win, including some in the final moments of the third period, while forward Brianne Jenner scored two goals in 1:24 during the second period.
“Sometimes you have to squeak it out at the end and rely on goaltending and blocked shots. We found a way to get it done,” Jenner said after the game.
Canada now has 12 women’s worlds gold medals to the Americans’ nine. Either the U.S. or Canada has won gold in women’s worlds every tournament since the event began in 1990. They’ve met each other in every tournament final save for 2019, when the U.S. defeated Finland for gold.
Team USA had won eight of the past 10 meetings with Canada at worlds and had won gold in five of the past six tournaments. Canada has now won gold in back-to-back IIHF world championships, to go along with their gold medal win over the Americans at the Beijing Olympics earlier this year.
Sunday’s game had a scoreless first period and an uncharacteristically low number of shots between the teams. But Team Canada roared to life in the second period thanks to Jenner, who was the MVP at the Beijing Olympics. Jenner collected a pass from teammate Marie-Philip Poulin and beat U.S. goalie Nicole Hensley at 9:30 of the second period for the 1-0 lead.
The Americans handed Canada even more momentum when Hannah Brandt went off for boarding just 26 seconds later. Jenner scored her second of the game on the ensuing power play to give Canada the 2-0 advantage. But the U.S. scored a critical goal with 21 seconds remaining in the second period, as Abby Roque banged in a perfect cross-crease pass from Amanda Kessel on the power play.
The Americans pushed in the third period, including a frantic final two minutes with Hensley pulled. But Desbiens made big saves while Poulin had a critical blocked shot late in the game to preserve the win.
The loss was Team USA’s first at the 2022 world championships, having gone undefeated in the preliminary round (outscoring their four opponents 30-3, including a 5-2 win over Canada) and playoffs.
Petra Kvitova erased a pair of match points and converted her fourth to edge Garbiñe Muguruza 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (10) on Saturday in a showdown between two-time major champions.
Kvitova just kept coming back — after dropping the first set, after trailing 5-2 in the third and after being a point from defeat twice at 6-5 — to advance to the fourth round of the US Open. No. 21 Kvitova on Monday will face No. 8 Jessica Pegula, who defeated qualifier Yuan Yue 6-2, 6-7 (6), 6-0, for a berth in the quarterfinals.
Here’s how close this one was: Kvitova won 109 total points, Muguruza 108.
It took the new format final-set tiebreaker to determine the winner. The four Grand Slam tournaments agreed to adopt a uniform system this year, with the third sets of women’s matches and fifth sets of men’s decided by a first-to-10, win-by-two formula; the US Open used to have the more traditional first-to-seven setup.
Kvitova, a left-hander who won Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014, overcame 12 double-faults with 14 aces and 50 total winners. She improved to 6-1 against No. 9 seed Muguruza, the champion at the French Open in 2016 and Wimbledon in 2017.
Anaheim Ducks forward Trevor Zegras and Team Canada forward Sarah Nurse are the cover athletes for NHL 23, EA Sports announced Wednesday, noting that Nurse is the first women’s hockey player to grace the cover of its NHL video game.
“It’s something that I never even thought was in the realm of possibilities,” Nurse, who starred in Canada’s dominant gold-medal win at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, told ESPN. “I never even dreamed of being on it. And so I think that it’s huge, and I think that it just speaks for where women’s hockey is right now, the visibility and the value that people see in women’s hockey.”
Clem Kwong, lead producer for the EA Sports NHL series, said there had been discussions in recent years about featuring a female hockey star on the cover. The timing was right for this edition after EA Sports added women’s national team rosters from the IIHF world championships to NHL 22 late last year, marking the first time women’s players could be selected in the game.
“When we started going through the process and looking at the short list of athletes, we were looking for athletes that were on the biggest stage. She’s a pioneer in inclusivity and diversity within the sport too,” Kwong said of Nurse.
Zegras had a star-making debut with the Ducks in 2021-22 thanks to several highlight-reel goals. The most audacious one saw Zegras lift the puck on his stick behind the Buffalo Sabres’ net and pass it over the goal cage to teammate Sonny Milano for a score.
Gamers tried to recreate that move, dubbed “The Zegras,” in NHL 22.
“I saw a bunch of videos of kids trying to create it,” Zegras, who finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting last season, told ESPN. “Almost like glitching the puck over the net, which was pretty cool to see.”
Programmers have created a way for players to execute that over-the-net pass in the game, making “The Zegras” an official part of the franchise.
Mike Inglehart, creative director at EA Sports, sees Zegras as the face of a generation of players who are pulling off “video game moves” in the NHL.
“They’re doing stuff where you’re saying, ‘That should be in a video game first and in the NHL second,'” Inglehart said. “Who knows where it goes? There’s probably something that ends up in NHL 24 that we’re not even thinking about right now.”
NHL 23 will be released on all platforms Oct. 14. Additional information about new features will be revealed later this week.
Reigning world No. 1 and two-time major champion Iga Swiatek called the balls used at the US Open “horrible” during a news conference at the Western & Southern Open this week, and questioned why women and men use different balls at the tennis major. It is the only Grand Slam tournament not to use the same balls for all players.
“I don’t know why they are different than men’s ones,” Swiatek said on Wednesday. “I don’t know, like, 15 years ago probably women had some elbow injuries because the balls were heavier and they changed them to women’s balls, but right now we are so physically well prepared that I don’t think it would happen. Plus we can’t get those balls in Europe, or actually, when we buy them at store, they are totally different than the tournament balls, so when I’m practicing with US Open balls at home [in Poland], I’m practicing with men’s ones …
“I feel, it’s really hard to control [the women’s balls], but everybody has same conditions, so we are trying to deal with that. I don’t get why they are different, honestly.”
The balls are also used during the lead-in swing, including the Western & Southern Open and last week’s Canadian Open. Swiatek, who had a 37-match win streak earlier this season, lost in the round of 16 to Madison Keys on Thursday in Cincinnati, and fell in the same round in Toronto.
Players have complained about the difference among one another, Swiatek said, and she and Paula Badosa, currently ranked No. 4, spoke to WTA CEO and chairman Steve Simon last year and asked whether they could switch to use the same ball as the men.
“I don’t think it would be a problem because it’s still the same company, it’s Wilson, but, yeah, maybe we should push a bit more,” Swiatek said. “I stopped actually pushing and trying to convince WTA, because the war in Ukraine happened and I refocused on something else. Yeah, but honestly, any tournament I play with these balls, I didn’t feel well.”
In a statement to ESPN, Amy Binder, the WTA’s senior vice president of global communications, said the organization was listening to player concerns and would explore the matter further.
“The WTA has always utilized regular felt balls for hardcourt play, and we have now begun to hear from a select number of our athletes that they would like to consider a change to using the extra duty ball,” Binder said. “The basis behind using the regular felt ball was that it limited the potential of arm, shoulder, elbow and wrist injuries. This is something that we will continue to monitor and discuss further with both our athletes and our sports science teams.”
Swiatek is not the first to publicly voice her displeasure about the ball disparity. Former world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty’s longtime coach Craig Tyzzer told reporters after her Australian Open victory earlier this year that Barty would never win the US Open with the current balls. Barty has since retired from tennis.
“The US Open really needs to change the ball for the girls, the fact they still use a different ball for guys and girls, it’s a terrible ball for someone like Ash,” Tyzzer said in January. “It was the only tournament last year and really for two years where she uses a gut racket, but I had to change her to a poly just to get any sort of control of the ball. If they keep that ball the same, no one like Ash will win that tournament.
“So I think you see the result at the US Open, it was two players who, you go, ‘Wow, that was, two different players won that?’ There’s no surprise when the ball is like it is.”
Five of the previous seven US Open women’s champions, including reigning victor Emma Raducanu, have been first-time major winners. The 2022 US Open gets underway on Aug. 29 in New York with Swiatek as the top seed.
MASON, Ohio — Serena Williams’ opening match in the Western & Southern Open has been rescheduled from Monday to Tuesday.
The 40-year-old Williams, preparing to retire, is set to face 19-year-old Emma Raducanu, the defending U.S. Open champion. A spokesperson for the tournament said the change was “on account of a number of factors related to scheduling.”
Williams has said she wants to have another child and pursue business interests. The 23-time Grand Slam champion has not said what her last event will be, but has made it sound as if her final farewell will come at the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 29 in New York.
Williams lost 6-2, 6-4 to Belinda Bencic on Wednesday night in Toronto in her first match since she elaborated on her future plans.