TENNIS

Naomi Osaka fought off two match points and came back to eliminate Garbiñe Muguruza in a big-hitting fourth-round matchup of Grand Slam champions Sunday at the Australian Open.

The third-seeded Osaka grabbed the last four games to win 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 and advance to the quarterfinals of a tournament she won in 2019 for one of her three major trophies.

Osaka was serving at 15-40 while trailing 5-3 in the final set. But Muguruza could not convert either of those match points and didn’t win another game.

Osaka next faces unseeded 35-year-old Hsie Su-wei of Taiwan with a semifinal berth at stake.

FOOTBALL

NFL: The Jacksonville Jaguars and embattled strength coach Chris Doyle parted ways Friday night, a few hours after a prominent diversity group assailed the team and called the recent hiring “simply unacceptable.”

Coach Urban Meyer and General Manager Trent Baalke said Doyle resigned and they accepted.

“Chris did not want to be a distraction to what we are building in Jacksonville,” Meyer and Baalke said in a statement. “We are responsible for all aspects of our program and, in retrospect, should have given greater consideration to how his appointment may have affected all involved. We wish him the best as he moves forward in his career.”

The team initially attributed the statement to Meyer, but added Baalke’s name Saturday and said it was an oversight.

The Fritz Pollard Alliance, whose mission is to increase diversity in the NFL, criticized Jacksonville’s leadership, specifically Meyer, and said racist allegations at Iowa should have disqualified Doyle as a coaching candidate.

Iowa agreed to pay Doyle $1.1 million in a resignation agreement last June after more than a dozen former players said he bullied and discriminated against them. Doyle denied the allegations. An investigation by an outside law firm later found that the program’s rules “perpetuated racial and culture biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity,” and allowed coaches to demean players without consequence.

GOLF

PGA: Jordan Spieth holed out from 160 yards for eagle on the 16th hole, the start of a stunning turnaround that took him from two shots behind to a two-shot lead in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Spieth shot a 1-under 71 as he goes for his first victory since the 2017 British Open. A pedestrian round that included bogeys on two of the par 5s left Spieth two shots behind Daniel Berger before Spieth hit a draw to a left pin on the 16th that landed about 8 feet right of the hole and took the slope all the way to the bottom of the cup.

Two holes later, Berger hit his drive out of bounds, leading to double bogey.

Patrick Cantlay birdied the 18th for a 70 and joined Berger two shots out of the lead.

AUTO RACING

XFINITY: Austin Cindric opened his Xfinity Series title defense with a victory at Daytona International Speedway.

Cindric got a push to the lead at the start of two-lap overtime from AJ Allmendinger, then held off Harrison Burton and Brett Moffitt over the final lap to pick up his first career win on Daytona’s oval.

BASEBALL

MLB: Outfielder Jay Bruce agreed to a minor league contract with the New York Yankees and will try to win a job at big league spring training.

The 33-year-old has an opportunity as a left-handed bat in a primarily right-handed lineup. The Yankees’ outfield features switch-hitter center fielder Aaron Hicks and right-handed-hitting right fielder Aaron Judge.

Clint Frazier, another right-handed hitter, is the top candidate for left field, with Michael Tauchman and Tyler Wade, both left-handed hitters, also contenders but more likely to spend time as backups.

• Pitchers Rich Hill and Collin McHugh have agreed to one-year contracts with the Tampa Bay Rays, a person familiar with the deals told The Associated Press.

Hill, a 40-year-old left-hander who has pitched for nine others teams over portions of 16 major league seasons, agreed to a deal worth $2.5 million. He is 67-44 with a 3.79 career ERA in stints with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Angels, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics and Minnesota Twins.

McHugh, 33, has been both a starter and reliever during parts of eight seasons with the New York Mets, Colorado Rockies and Houston Astros, going 58-43 with a 3.95 ERA. The right-hander signed with Boston in 2020 but opted out of the shortened season while recovering from an injury.

• Tim Tebow has been invited to big league spring training by the New York Mets, taking one of 75 spots after Major League Baseball limited spring roster sizes as a coronavirus precaution.

The 2007 Heisman Trophy winner returned to baseball in 2016 for the first time since his junior year of high school and played 77 games at Triple-A in 2019 before the pandemic wiped out the 2020 minor league season.

A lefty-hitting outfielder, the 33-year-old Tebow batted .163 with four homers and 19 RBI two years ago with Syracuse. He’s been invited to major league spring training each of the past four years and has hit .151 in 34 games, connecting for his first and only homer last spring before camps were closed.

• The Mets’ pitching staff took a hit before the start of spring training when the team announced that Seth Lugo needs elbow surgery and will miss the start of the season.

An MRI revealed a bone spur in the right-hander’s pitching shoulder. Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek will operate Tuesday at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Lugo will not throw for six weeks, then will be assessed and transition to a throwing program. That timeline means the earliest he would start to throw would be about opening day on April 1. He will not be game ready until well into the season.

• The Arizona Diamondbacks agreed to a $1.75 million, one-year deal with veteran infielder Asdrubal Cabrera.

SKIING

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Ted Ligety’s career ended six days earlier than planned.

The two-time Olympic champ was going to retire after the giant slalom race at the world championships, but he woke up to severe back pain on Friday and announced on Instagram that a scan revealed his back was “herniated to the point it’s not safe to ski right now.”

• Corinne Suter ended Switzerland’s 32-year wait for a women’s downhill world title, winning her fourth straight medal at a major championship, but her first gold.

Racing in sunshine under crisp blue skies in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, Suter mastered the Olympia delle Tofane course and decided the race by using excellent gliding skills on the flat bottom section of the iconic course.

“It’s for sure a huge step,” Suter said about her first gold. “I am so, so happy because all the hard work in the last years paid off today.”

Suter’s teammate Lara Gut-Behrami led for most of her run, but two costly mistakes saw her drop to third, earning bronze after she had beaten Suter to gold in Thursday’s super-G.

Kira Weidle finished a career-best second for silver, winning the second medal for Germany this week.

Olympic super-G champion Ester Ledecka missed the podium by seven-hundredths in fourth.

SOCCER

ENGLAND: Ilkay Gundogan scored two goals for the second straight week as Premier League leader Manchester City powered to a record-extending 16th successive win in all competitions, 3-0 over Tottenham.

• Slumping champion Liverpool fell to a third straight loss in the Premier League after a dramatic late collapse against Leicester, conceding three goals in seven minutes in a 3-1 defeat.

SPAIN: Lionel Messi scored two screamers in his record-equaling 505th Spanish league appearance as Barcelona defeated Alaves, 5-1.

Atletico Madrid got goals from Marcos Llorente and Angel Correa to win 2-1 at Granada and remain eight points clear of Barcelona and Real Madrid.

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