The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-10)

D2 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 10 , 2020

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TENNIS
6:30 a.m. WTA: Prague Open and Top Seed Open, early rounds » T ennis Channel

GOLF

Kang rallies to capture

L PGA Marathon crown

Five shots behind with six
holes to play, Danielle Kang won
her second straight LPGA Tour
event S unday by a single stroke
when Lydia Ko posted a double
bogey on the final hole at the
Marathon Classic in Sylvania,
Ohio.
Kang began her rally with
consecutive birdies on the 13th
and 14th holes at Highland
Meadows, and then all she
needed were pars the rest of the
way for a 3-under-par 68, all
because of Ko’s shocking collapse.
Ko was poised to end two years
and 44 tournaments without a
victory. She made bogey on the
14th hole, and with Kang’s
birdies, the lead suddenly was
down to two. Ko dropped another
shot on the 16th and caught a
break when Kang was in position
for birdie on the 17th and had to
settle for par.
But on the closing par-5, Ko fell
apart. She hit her chip through
the green. With a slightly uphill
lie in patchy rough, Ko muffed the
chip and watched it roll into a
bunker. She blasted that out to 10
feet and missed the putt that
would have forced a playoff. She
wound up with a 73.
Jodi Ewart Shadoff ( 67) tied
Ko for second at 14-under 270....
Andy Sullivan e nded a nearly
five-year wait for his fourth
European Tour title when he
recorded a seven-shot victory at
the English Championship in
Ware.
Heading into the final round
with a five-shot advantage,
Sullivan saw his lead cut to t wo by
Spain’s Adrian Otaegui (66).
But while his challenger
faltered over the closing stages,
Sullivan recorded four birdies on
the back nine to shoot a 6-under
65 for a 27-under 257 total.
O taegui finished second and
Rasmus Hojgaard, a 19-year-old
from Denmark, closed with a 64
to finish eight shots back in third.

SOCCER
Former European champions
Celtic and Red Star Belgrade got
home advantage when pairings
were drawn f or single-leg games
in the Champions League first
qualifying round.
Celtic, the 1967 European Cup
winner, will host KR Reykjavik on
Aug. 18 or 19. Red Star, the 1991
European champion, will face
Gibraltar league winner Europa.
UEFA drew 17 pairings Sunday
that will be played before this
season’s Champions League is
scheduled to end with an Aug. 23
final in Lisbon.
Legia Warsaw will play Drita of
Kosovo or Linfield of Northern
Ireland, who have a preliminary
round play-in game Tuesday in
Nyon, Switzerland.
In other ties involving former
group-stage participants, Cluj of
Romania was drawn away to
Floriana of Malta, and Bulgaria’s
Ludogorets Razgrad travels to
Buducnost Podgorica of
Montenegro. Ferencvaros of
Hungary hosts Djurgarden of
Sweden.
UEFA decided amid the

rescheduled p rogram during the novel coronavirus pandemic to stage the three Champions League qualifying rounds as single-leg games. Playoff round pairings in September are slated to be held over two legs.... T wo members of Atlético Madrid’s group set to travel to Portugal for the Champions League quarterfinals tested positive for the coronavirus. The Spanish club did not name those who tested positive and did not say if a player was involved. The last eight is scheduled to begin in Lisbon on Wednesday amid tight health safety protocols to prevent an outbreak from derailing the competition. The semifinals and Aug. 23 final will also be played in Lisbon.

PRO BASKETBALL Riquna Williams scored 21 points and led five Los Angeles Sparks players in double digits in a 97-81 WNBA win over the Minnesota Lynx in Bradenton, Fla. Candace Parker s cored 11 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and distributed nine assists for L os Angeles (4-3). Crystal Dangerfield led the Lynx (5-2) with 29 points.... A’ja Wilson scored 31 points, and her short shot with seven seconds left lifted the Las Vegas Aces past the New York Liberty, 78-76. Wilson’s game-winner gave Las Vegas (5-2) just its second lead of the game. Amanda Zahui B. led the Liberty (1-6) with 20 points.... Hall of Famer Paul Westphal, an all-American at USC who later starred for the Phoenix Suns, was diagnosed with brain cancer, close friend Mike Lupica announced. W estphal, 69, has glioblastoma, a rapidly growing tumor in the brain. A guard who was a three-time all-NBA first team selection, Westphal later won 318 games as a head coach at Phoenix, Seattle and Sacramento. He was i nducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last year.

MISC. Max Verstappen sprung what could be the surprise of the Formula One season by beating Lewis Hamilton to win the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in Silverstone, England. The Red Bull driver crossed the line 11.3 seconds clear of Hamilton, with Valtteri Bottas third. Mercedes had been expected to cruise to its fifth win in as many rounds this season, but Hamilton and Bottas struggled with their tires.... Carroll Hardy, a multisport star best known as the only man ever to pinch-hit for Ted Williams, died Sunday of complications from dementia. He was 87. After starring in track, baseball and football at the University of Colorado, Hardy went on to play professional baseball and football. Hardy a lso was a football executive who helped assemble the Denver Broncos’ “Orange Crush” defense in the 1970s. — From news services

DIGEST

BY NOAH TRISTER

brooklyn, mich. — Kevin Har-
vick won just about everything
he could during a stellar week-
end at Michigan International
Speedway, but Denny Hamlin
fittingly was the last driver to
pressure him.
Harvick held off Hamlin on
Sunday to complete a double-
header sweep in the NASCAR
Cup Series. He also won Satur-
day’s race, and the victories give
him six on the season — the most
of any driver.
Hamlin, who has five victories,
nearly chased Harvick down at
the end, and this weekend did
nothing to dispel the notion that
these two are top contenders for
this year’s championship.

“I have tremendous respect for everyone on that team and Kev- in,” Hamlin said. “As we’ve gotten older, we’ve gotten wiser and learned to really appreciate what each other does on the racetrack. Obviously, they’re having a great season as well.” Hamlin was right behind Har- vick for the final few laps and came close to passing him a couple of times, but Harvick stayed in front. Hamlin’s final desperate bid came up short at the end when Harvick crossed the finish line 0.093 seconds ahead. Harvick also won the first two stages Saturday and the second stage Sunday. Clint Bowyer won Sunday’s first stage of the 1 56-lap, 312-mile race.

With NASCAR running an ad- justed schedule amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, both Michigan races were held on the same weekend. That meant Har- vick became the first driver since Richard Petty in 1971 to win back-to-back Cup Series races on consecutive days. Petty did it July 14 and 15 at Islip and Saratoga. “It’s been a long time since I’ve raced back-to-back days, let alone in the Cup car,” Harvick said. “I’ve never accomplished that, obviously, but we’ve done that a couple times this year, so I think for us it’s worked out pretty well. We’re hoping it goes the same way at Dover when we go there in a couple of weeks.” The two Michigan races were similar, with no major incidents

through the first two stages. Saturday’s finish was more cha- otic with a number of late cautions. On Sunday, there were only three cautions, not including the yellow periods at the end of the first two stages. But one of those cautions Sunday came after a wreck that knocked out two of Team P enske’s stars. Brad Keselowski’s Ford made contact with Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 car shortly after the start of the final stage, sending the teammates slamming into the wall. “It’s my fault. I feel really bad for my teammate, Ryan Blaney,” Keselowski said. “He didn’t de- serve that.... I went to get underneath the 12, and I just

slipped. I lost the back a little bit, and when I went to collect it, he was there, and I wiped him out and myself out. So I feel terrible for everyone at Team Penske and especially Ryan Blaney.” That wasn’t enough to ruin the day for Ford, which has won six straight Cup Series races at Michigan. Harvick has taken four of the past five. “When you start getting texts from Edsel Ford [II] on how important the weekend is, you answer those,” Harvick said. “I’ve been around Ford for several years now, and you understand the importance of winning at Michigan — the energy and effort that they not only put into our cars but that they put into the engines at Roush Yates. This

is the place, right behind Dayto- na, that everybody from Ford wants to win at.” Harvick’s 55th career victory moved him into a 10th-place tie with Rusty Wallace, one behind Kyle Busch. Busch remained winless this year after a fourth-place finish, but he turned in solid perfor- mances both days. Martin Truex Jr. was one spot ahead of him Sunday. Aric Almirola, Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch remain the top driv- ers without a win in the points standings with four races left in the regular season. Keselowski still has never won a Cup Series race in his home state. — Associated Press

NASCAR CUP SERIES

Harvick holds off H amlin to complete a d oubleheader sweep at Michigan

desire to protest. And they don’t want to stop playing the anthem while players are on the court or field. So now the start of the anthem is like a school bell, but instead of changing classes, it’s a bat signal for choosing sides. It’s a most uncomfortable sight, but it’s not the hint of civil disobedience that stays with me. These leagues are so inextricably knotted to the anthem — which you would think would be superfluous if athletics were nothing more than a trivial and apolitical haven — that they are, in essence, making a parade of the controversial demonstration. The anthem represents the hole in the sports bubble. Sports stuck to it before anything else. Anyone who wanted sports insulated from society should have questioned the anthem as a pregame necessity long ago. That didn’t happen. Why? Symbolism is important, for both pride and control. And sports have no transcendent power if they are 100 percent sports. Take the 95 percent and rejoice. [email protected]

For more by Jerry Brewer, visit washingtonpost.com/brewer.

want it and where they see or don’t see room for compromise. If pregame protests or jersey messages are really too much for some people, it makes me wonder why they were drawn to the diverse world of sports in the first place. Was it pure escapism to concentrate on loving the game? Or was it just an effort to avoid the complexities of life by disappearing into a realm in which tradition, rules and order make everything seem tidy? Do you watch sports because gifted humans thrill you by doing the unexpected? Or do you watch sports because they are neatly packaged games of athleticism and control in which complicated people try their hardest to do as they’re told? The anthem is a metaphor for sports’ strange new existence. Pro leagues, especially the NFL, saw only goodwill and dollar signs in branding themselves patriotic. They never realized that overdramatized presentations of the anthem could become such an issue. Now that kneeling and other forms of protest during “The Star-Spangled Banner” have become common, sports are stuck. In this climate, they don’t want to stifle their players’

years. Sports don’t think very long-term because such vision isn’t usually required. And so, similar to the NFL protests of three years ago and the backlash President Trump led, I’m not certain the sports community truly has thought about all it has tied itself to in recent weeks. There are traces of a no-win predicament: The justice- seeking side will demand that there’s no letup, and the stick- to-sports side will scream that the games have been ruined. It’s up to the leaders of sports, for once in their money-chasing lives, to stand their ground, resist hedging their bets and think about being on the right side of history. The challenge will be tough because, even if there is no fan attrition, they’ll still be dealing with an audience full of people who have lost significant income or who will be careful with their spending. Because of the novel coronavirus, extreme revenue shortfalls are inevitable. If anti- justice boycotting actually becomes more than breathless overreaction, the stickiness of sports gets even stickier. At this time, with determined athletes refusing to let off the gas, fans must reexamine what they want from sports, why they

climate is safe enough to seek a connection, which is consistent with the wishes of athletes who want to use their celebrity to speak for the unheard. We see it play out in the moments before events begin. What for decades had been a passive show of patriotism has turned into a roll call of demonstration. You can’t tune in for pregame festivities without witnessing some form of protest during the national anthem. You also can’t even turn on an NHL game or NASCAR race without being reminded that Black lives matter. You can’t hold out hope for a college football season without learning about the players fighting for representation and fairness. I feel some sympathy for those who want sports simply to be sports again. I understand the desire to detach from the grief of this awful year. But if sports found a way to be close to 100 percent diversion during happier times, they remain at about 95 percent fun and games. It takes about 150 minutes to watch an NBA game, complete with the bells and whistles of TV presentation. Not even 10 of those minutes are reserved for social justice. So for as much as sports seem different this summer, they really just got a new haircut and changed their shirt color for a good cause. It’s still easy to get lost in the games, even if the jerseys and fields of play have statements on them. That can be seen as a taxation of joy or as an opportunity to mix enrichment with familiar pleasure. Still, some will see sports now as too progressive. It’s an easy target in our exasperating culture war, and depending on how you lean politically, it may be a turnoff. In a country that has turned public health protocols into politicized debate, what I see as clear human rights concerns somehow are turned into partisan issues. In this era of spectator volatility, some fans will depart in disgust. Some will be more attracted to sports. Most figure to ride it out. The unknown is how business executives will react if there’s significant seesawing over the next few

BREWER FROM D1

JERRY BREWER

Sports have become more than just a mindless escape

KEVIN C. COX/USA TODAY SPORTS Protests during the national anthem have become a part — though a relatively small part — of sports.

BY KAREEM COPELAND

Washington Mystics Coach/ General Manager Mike Thibault had a heart-to-heart with his team Saturday. It came a day after an ugly loss to the previously winless New York Liberty in a game Thibault called one of the most embarrassing of his tenure with Washington. Thibault said he talked about what it means to play for the organization and the basic princi- ples of offense and defense that are “nonnegotiable.” He told re- porters that meetings “are always great, but the proof is in how you play.” Thibault didn’t get the proof he was looking for Sunday night, when the Mystics dropped their fourth straight, this one a 91-84 loss to the Indiana Fever. The loss in the WNBA’s bubble in Braden- ton, Fla., ended their 11-game winning streak against the Fever. “It’s been a struggle, obviously,”

Mystics point guard Leilani Mitchell said. “Nobody likes to fail, and now we’ve lost all these games in a row. It’s a mental battle. We just need to remind ourselves that we have done it before and we can get ourselves out of this hole if we pay attention to the little things, bring the energy and stay focused.” The Mystics (3-4) were without starting wing Aerial Powers and her 16.3 points per game after she landed on her right hip after a hard foul Friday against the Lib- erty. She had an MRI exam, and Thibault said she could miss the rest of the week. Kiara Leslie started in her place on a team that had only 10 players available even before Powers went down and that lost its scoring touch in the previous three games. The offense clearly missed Powers on Sunday as the Fever jumped to a 52-39 halftime lead. The Mystics shot just 34.3 percent in the first half en route to shoot- ing 37.7 percent on the night. They couldn’t get out in transi-

tion, had no fast-break points in the first half and struggled to connect on easy attempts. Emma Meesseman was the lone bright spot early and stayed hot for the third straight game, knocking down her first six shots. She had 17 of her 19 points in the first half, a single-half high this season. Others struggled to find the basket, however, and the crisp ball movement that has been a staple of Mystics basketball remained absent. “I can’t explain the missing shots,” Thibault said. “I don’t know if it’s fatigue. I don’t know if it’s rushing stuff. I didn’t have a concern tonight about the mental energy.” After halftime, Meesseman was shut out until there was under a minute to play. Tianna Hawkins added a much-needed 17 points and 10 rebounds off the bench, and Mitchell had 14 points and five assists to help keep the Mystics competitive. “Emma had such a great first half,” Thibault said. “Between her teammates and her, I don’t know why we can’t just do a better job of getting her the ball. But she needs

to be aggressive about it, too, so it’s a little bit of everything.” Things weren’t any better on the defensive end. The Fever (3-4) shot 50 percent from the field, including 47.1 percent from three- point range. Kelsey Mitchell carved up the Mystics for 29 points, including four three-pointers. Teaira M cCowan posted 15 points and 11 rebounds, and Julie Allemand finished with 13 points, six rebounds and five assists. The Fever closed the second quarter on an 18-4 run highlight- ed by a Kelsey Mitchell pull-up three-pointer followed by her fast-break layup. A reverse layup by Candice Dupree put Indiana up by 15. The Mystics made a late push in the fourth quarter and got as close as four points, but a baby hook by McCowan and consecutive baskets from Tiffany Mitchell all but put the game away. “This game has highs and lows, and this is just a low moment right now,” Mystics forward My- isha Hines-Allen said. “We’re just waiting to get our groove back.” [email protected]

Slumping Mystics lose fourth in a row

FEVER 91, MYSTICS 84

Mystics vs. Lynx Tomorrow, 9 p.m., ESPN2

The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-10)

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