Alex de Miñaur Helps Lead Australia to Davis Cup Finals

Alex de Miñaur has helped lead Australia back to the Davis Cup final…

The 24-year-old Uruguayan & Spanish Australian professional tennis player and Alexei Popyrin put Australia back into the Davis Cup final for a second straight year after winning their singles matches in a 2-0 victory over Finland on Friday.

Alex de MinaurPopyrin gave Australia a 1-0 lead in the semifinal match after beating Otto Virtanen 7-6 (5), 6-2. de Miñaur then finished off Finland by beating Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4, 6-3.

Novak Djokovic‘s Serbia will face Jannik Sinner‘s Italy on Saturday in the other semifinal match on the indoor hard court at Martin Carpena Arena in Malaga, Spain.

Popyrin edged Virtanen in the first set, saving a set point when trailing 6-5 and forcing a tiebreaker that he clinched when his opponent slapped a forehand long.

Virtanen was Finland’s hero in its upset of defending champion Canada on Tuesday, winning both his singles and doubles matches. But his serve let him down against Popyrin in the second set when his fifth double-fault cost him a break.

“(That was) probably the biggest win of my career so far,” Popyrin said. “To win a match that means so much for us is an honor and something I will never forget.”

de Miñaur converted five of 18 break chances against Ruusuvuori. He ended the match by landing a backhand winner on the sideline.

Australia has the second-most Davis Cup titles, with 28 to 32 for the United States, but its last success came in 2003.

Leylah Fernandez Helps Lead Canada to Country’s First-Ever Billie Jean King Cup Title

Leylah Fernandez has helped Canada make history…

The 21-year-old half-Ecuadorian Canadian tennis player and her compatriot Marina Stakusic won their singles matches as Canada beat Italy 2-0 to claim its first-ever Billie Jean King Cup title on Sunday.

Leylah FernandezStakusic, ranked 258th in the world, put Canada ahead by defeating No. 43 Martina Trevisan 7-5, 6-3 for the biggest win of her career, then Fernandez sealed the victory by beating Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-3 at La Cartuja Stadium.

The 20th-ranked Fernandez, runner-up in the 2021 US Open, was perfect for Canada in Seville with four victories, while the 18-year-old Stakusic entered the tournament without a win over a top-100 opponent but earned three of them while representing her nation in Spain.

“I’m so happy and honored that I could play this week,” Stakusic, who didn’t play a WTA main draw match this year, said on court. “This has been the best week of my life.”

Canada defeated 11-time champion Czech Republic in the semifinals, while four-time champion Italy advanced past Slovenia for its first final appearance since 2013.

The 12-team BJK Cup Finals offered a record total of $9.6 million in prize money, including $2.4 million to the champions, the same as the men’s Davis Cup.

Canada, captained by Heidi El Tabakh, is the 13th nation to win the Billie Jean King Cup and the second new champion after Switzerland‘s triumph in Glasgow a year ago.

“I don’t know what to say,” El Tabakh said. “I’m so proud of this team. These girls are incredible. It’s a dream come true.”

The Canada men’s team is the current Davis Cup champion.

The women’s teams competed in four round-robin groups, with the winners advancing to the semifinals. The United States was eliminated by the Czech Republic in a group that also included title-holder Switzerland.

The biggest team competition in women’s tennis started two days after the end of the WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico, which featured the top eight players on the tour — including winner Iga Swiatek.

Ruiz Leads Costa Rica Past Italy and Into the World Cup Round of 16

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Bryan Ruiz has scored one of the most important goals of his career to help Costa Rica pull off one of the biggest upsets of the 2014 World Cup.

The 28-year-old Costa Rican footballer and national team captain’s header, the first goal World Cup of his career, in the 44th-minute cemented the team’s victory over Italy 1-0 in the Recife, Brazil.

Bryan Ruiz

Costa Rica showed their 3-1 win over Uruguay was no fluke as they took the game to Italy in impressive style. Los Ticos now lead Group C on six points

Ruiz’s header, the biggest goal for his team in the last 24 years, has resulted in Costa Rica’s return to the Round of 16 for the second time in its history — the first was in 1990.

“Maybe there are a lot of people who didn’t have faith in us because we were in the ‘Group of Death’,” said Ruiz in a post-game interview. “But the dead are the other ones and we’re going to the next round.”

The result also guarantees England‘s first-round exit from the tournament. It’s the first time since 1958 that England has been eliminated in the group stage of the FIFA World Cup.

Italy and Uruguay, who meet on Tuesday, each have three points but Italy’s superior goal difference means they need only a draw to go through.

Iniesta Named Euro Cup 2012 MVP…

Andres Iniesta is simply the best… And, he’s got the medal to prove it.

The 28-year-old Spanish futbolista has been honored as best player of the European Championship—the Euro Cup 2012—after helping Spain become the first nation to successfully defend the continental crown.

Andres Iniesta

Iniesta started all six of Spain’s matches, including Sunday’s 4-0 victory over Italy in the championship game at the Olympic Stadium in which he recorded an assist.

“Iniesta deserved it. He symbolized the tournament — the creative, incisive runner, with and without the ball,” says Union of European Football Association (UEFA) technical director Andy Roxbuirgh. “We felt that he epitomized a lot of what we saw.”

Roxbuirgh says UEFA’s panel also considered Spain midfielders Xavi Hernandez and Xabi Alonso and Italy midfielder Andrea Pirlo for the award.