BASKETBALL
Cat Barber scored 16 of his game-high 33 in the first half to propel the College Park Skyhawks to a 75-57 halftime advantage and picked up their sixth straight win, holding off the Maine Celtics 136-127 Tuesday night in a G League game at College Park, Georgia.
Langston Galloway had 26 points for the Skyhawks (15-13), DeQuan Jeffries and Marcus Georges-Hunt both added 19 and A.J. Lawson pulled down 12 rebounds.
Chris Clemons led the Celtics (13-15) with 25 points and Brodric Thomas scored 17.
Maine has four games left in the regular season.
TENNIS
Rafael Nadal will be sidelined for four to six weeks because of a rib injury, putting in jeopardy his preparations for the French Open in two months.
Nadal said Tuesday he underwent exams after arriving in Spain from the United States and results showed he has a stress fracture on one of his left ribs. The injury was sustained in the semifinals at Indian Wells against Carlos Alcaraz. Nadal then lost in the final to Taylor Fritz in two sets on Sunday.
“This is not good news and I didn’t expect it,” Nadal wrote on Twitter. “I’m devastated and sad because it comes after a great start to the season.”
Nadal was 20-0 to begin the season, including winning the Australian Open, before losing to Fritz 6-3, 7-6 (5) at the hard-court tournament in California. It was the third-best start to a season since 1990 on the ATP Tour. Nadal also won titles in Melbourne and Acapulco.
The 35-year-old Nadal was treated by a trainer during the final against Fritz and afterward said the problem began the night before during the semifinals against Alcaraz.
Nadal’s winning streak to begin 2022 included his record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January.
The third-ranked Nadal will try to win a record-extending 14th French Open title at Roland Garros this year. He lost to eventual champion Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of last year’s tournament in Paris.
RETIREMENT: World No. 1-ranked Ash Barty has announced her retirement from tennis at the age of 25.
Barty said in an emotional video posted Wednesday on social media: “I wasn’t quite sure of how I was gonna do this . . . it’s hard to say . I’m so happy and I’m so ready. I just know at the moment in my heart for me as a person this is right.”
The announcement comes less than two months after she won her home Australian Open, her third Grand Slam singles title.
DOPING
WEIGHTLIFTING: Olympic weightlifting champion Nijat Rahimov was stripped of his 2016 gold medal and banned for eight years for doping on Tuesday.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said the Kazakh lifter was guilty of “four urine substitutions” and disqualified from all his results since March 2016.
Rahimov’s world record at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics was controversial even at the time. It came one year after he served a previous ban for doping while competing for Azerbaijan.
His integrity was publicly doubted by rival Mohamed Mahmoud of Egypt, who took the bronze medal in the 77-kilogram class.
“Maybe after some doping controls, some things will change,” Mahmoud said in Rio.
GOLF
U.S. OPEN: Oakland Hills Country Club, reeling from a fire that destroyed its century-old clubhouse last month, has landed the U.S. Open in 2034 and 2051.
“It’s a great day,” said Rick Palmer, president of the Oakland Hills.
The USGA made the announcement Tuesday at the Detroit Athletic Club. The governing body also said Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania, previously scheduled to have the U.S. Open in 2034, will host the major in 2033. Oakland Hills has hosted six U.S. Opens and has been trying for years to attract a seventh, and first since 1996. The club has hosted a slew of other significant professional and amateur golf events, including three PGA Championships and the 2004 Ryder Cup.
When Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open in 1951 in suburban Detroit, he famously said he “brought this course, this monster” to its knees.
Two-time U.S. Open champion Andy North, who won his second U.S. Open in 1985 at Oakland Hills, said the golf course can safely be considered among the country’s top 10 in historical significance.
SOCCER
WORLD CUP: Next week’s World Cup draw will have some of its seedings skewed because of Russia’s war with Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic.
FIFA outlined the procedure for the draw in Qatar on April 1. Only 29 of the 32 teams in the draw will be known by then because of the war and global health crisis.
The three remaining places will be decided in June, one from Europe in matches involving Ukraine and the others from the intercontinental playoffs.
At the draw in Doha, the 29 qualified teams will be put into four pots according to their FIFA ranking, which is based on national team results and will be updated the day before the draw.
The World Cup is scheduled to be played from Nov. 21-Dec. 18 in eight stadiums around the Qatari capital of Doha.
• Portugal has called up Wolverhampton goalkeeper Jose Sa to replace Anthony Lopes for the World Cup qualifier against Turkey on Thursday.
The Portuguese soccer federation said Lopes has been ruled out because of an undisclosed injury.
SPANISH LEAGUE: Mallorca fired Coach Luis Garcia Plaza two days after the team slid into the relegation zone.
The club owned by American businessman Robert Sarver fell 1-0 at Espanyol on Sunday for its sixth straight league loss.
EQUESTRIAN
PUNISHMENT: Mark Todd, a two-time Olympic champion in equestrian and now a notable racehorse trainer, will face a disciplinary hearing on Thursday after a video on social media showed him striking a horse with a branch.
The British Horseracing Authority temporarily removed the 66-year-old New Zealander’s training license last month, preventing him from racing horses in Britain or internationally.
In a video posted on social media, Todd is seen repeatedly striking a horse that was refusing to jump into water during a training clinic in August 2020.
Todd accepted the suspension from the BHA and apologized.
The hearing will determine whether Todd engaged in “conduct prejudicial to the good reputation of horseracing in Great Britain by striking a horse multiple times with a tree branch,” the BHA said.
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