BASEBALL
Manny Rodriguez had a two-run homer and Francisco Alvarez a two-run double as the Binghamton Rumble Ponies beat the Portland Sea Dogs 6-1 Wednesday night in an Eastern League game at Hadlock Field.
Alvarez had a two-run double in the fifth inning to give Binghamton a 2-0 lead. The Rumble Ponies tacked on two runs in the sixth and two more in the eighth on Rodriguez’s homer.
Portland scored on Wil Dalton’s sacrifice fly in the seventh.
Winner Jose Butto (1-1) pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing five hits and two walks with three strikeouts.
Chris Murphy (0-1) took the loss, allowing two runs in five innings. He allowed three hits, walked three and struck out five.
HOCKEY
NHL: U.S. women’s hockey star Amanda Kessel is joining the Pittsburgh Penguins for an executive management program that could put her on track to work full time in an NHL front office.
• A popular Zamboni driver for the Detroit Red Wings said he was dismissed for urinating in a drain.
Al Sobotka filed a discrimination lawsuit this week against Olympia Entertainment, two months after he was fired, following 51 years with the Red Wings. His lawyer said he has a health condition that causes him to frequently urinate.
Sobotka, 68, couldn’t get to a restroom so he urinated in a drain that carries ice runoff from the Zamboni machines at Little Caesars Arena. Someone saw him and apparently reported it in February.
TENNIS
ITALIAN OPEN: Five-time champion Novak Djokovic can come to Rome and play at the Italian Open next month even if he is still not vaccinated against the coronavirus, the president of the Italian Tennis Federation said .
ISTANBUL CHAMPIONSHIP: Top-seeded Elise Mertens retired from her opening match because of a leg injury.
The 26-year-old Belgian was losing 7-5, 4-1 to Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson when she retired with pain in her right leg. Mertens was runner-up to Sorana Cirstea last year.
Croatian player Petra Martic upset fourth-seeded Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5).
BARCELONA OPEN: Playing on home soil for the first time in nearly a year, Carlos Alcaraz defeated Soonwoo Kwon 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in his opening match.
The 11th-ranked Spaniard, seeking his third title in 2022, improved to 19-3 this season.
The fifth-seeded Alcaraz will next face countryman Jaume Munar, who defeated ninth-seeded Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-1, 6-4.
Top-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas was 1-0 up in the first set when his match against 44th-ranked Ilya Ivashka had to be suspended because of rain.
SERBIA OPEN: Novak Djokovic rallied from a set down to beat compatriot Laslo Djere 2-6, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4) in the second round in a match that lasted almost 3 1/2 hours.
Djokovic next faces another Serb, Miomir Kecmanovic, who defeated John Millman 6-4, 7-6 (5) to reach the quarterfinals for the second year in a row.
ACCUSATION: Former professional tennis player Pam Shriver, now a television commentator for ESPN and the BBC, says that she “had an inappropriate and damaging relationship with my much older coach” that began when she was 17 and he was 50.
In a first-person account published by British newspaper The Telegraph, Shriver describes a “painful and emotional journey” that included what she writes was a relationship with Coach Don Candy that lasted a little more than five years.
Candy died in 2020.
“I still have conflicted feelings about Don. Yes, he and I became involved in a long and inappropriate affair. Yes, he was cheating on his wife. But there was a lot about him that was honest and authentic. And I loved him,” she says. “Even so, he was the grown-up here. He should have been the trustworthy adult.”
STUTTGART OPEN: U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu eased past Australian Storm Sanders 6-1, 6-2 in the first round at Stuttgart, Germany.
The eighth-seeded Raducanu next faces Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch for the chance to play top-ranked Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals.
SOCCER
MLS: D.C. United fired Coach Hernan Losada and gave assistant Chad Ashton the job on an interim basis with the club in last place in the MLS Eastern Conference.
United is 2-4-0. Its most recent MLS game was a 3-2 loss to Austin on Saturday after D.C. led 2-0 with 10 minutes left.
PREMIER LEAGUE: Richarlison scored an equalizer in the second minute of stoppage time as Everton drew 1-1 with Leicester to move four points clear of the relegation zone.
Harvey Barnes’ fifth-minute goal looked set to win the game for Leicester and leave Everton in the sights of third-to-last Burnley, which plays Southampton on Thursday.
But in Everton’s final attack at Goodison Park, the ball reached Richarlison via Dele Alli and Salomon Rondon, and the Brazil international converted the chance.
• Miguel Almiron’s well-taken goal handed Newcastle a sixth successive home win for the first time since 2004 as a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace took the team past the 40-point barrier.
GOLF
U.S. OPEN: Pebble Beach is the third course to become an anchor site for the U.S. Open, with the USGA announcing four U.S. Opens and four U.S. Women’s Open over the next 26 years.
Pebble Beach joins Pinehurst No. 2 and Oakmont Country Club as anchor sites, a strategy that allows the USGA to return to its most famous U.S. Open courses more frequently.
The USGA made sure the women were not left behind.
The U.S. Women’s Open will be held on America’s most famous seaside course for the first time next year, and then it will return three more times in 2035, 2040 and 2048.
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