Lopez stops Victor Ortiz in stunning upset
Lopez stops Victor Ortiz in stunning upset
LOS ANGELES —Unheralded Josesito Lopez stopped welterweight star Victor Ortiz on Saturday night, apparently breaking Ortiz’s jaw in the ninth round to earn a stunning upset victory.
Ortiz and his corner stopped the fight before the 10th-round bell when the injury left Ortiz unable to close his mouth.
Lopez (30-4, 18 KOs) leaped onto the ropes to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in recent boxing history. Lopez accepted the fight last month as a late replacement for Andre Berto, who failed a doping test that scuttled his rematch with Ortiz.
Ortiz (29-4-2) was narrowly leading on all three judges’ scorecards when he quit. Lopez had made the fight much closer than expected.
Argentina’s Lucas Matthysse also stopped Mexico’s Humberto Soto after five rounds on the undercard at Staples Center.
US beats Canada
9-1 in Title IX celebration game
OKLAHOMA CITY — Samantha Fischer homered in her first international competition with the U.S. national softball team, and the Americans rolled to a 9-1 victory over Canada on Saturday night in an exhibition game recognizing the 40th anniversary of Title IX.
Fischer led off the fifth inning with her second home run for the U.S. team. The previous one came in a series of three warmup games against the U.S. elite squad this month. Christi Orgeron added a two-run double later in the inning to make it 9-1 and end the game because of the run rule.
Jordan Taylor struck out six in three innings of work, allowing Canada’s only run in the third, to get the win.
Both teams will play next week in the World Cup of Softball, with their first games on Thursday.
Piquet Jr. wins Nationwide race
at Road America
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Nelson Piquet Jr. held the lead on a late restart, then pulled away from the rest of the field Saturday to win the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Road America.
The Brazilian, a former Formula One driver and the son of three-time F1 champion Nelson Sr., became a winner in his third career Nationwide start after starting the race from pole position. Piquet’s extensive road racing experience paid off at the four-mile, 14-turn road course that winds through the hills of central Wisconsin.
Now he’s out to prove he belongs in NASCAR.
Michael McDowell was second, followed by Ron Fellows, Max Papis and Sam Hornish Jr.
Jacques Villeneuve collided with Danica Patrick on the last lap as the two drivers were battling for fourth place, causing Patrick’s car to spin out. Villeneuve finished sixth, while Patrick recovered and finished 12th.
Hunter-Reay wins wild IndyCar race in Iowa
NEWTON, Iowa — Ryan Hunter-Reay passed Scott Dixon with 12 laps to go and held on to win for the second straight week in a wild IndyCar Series race that ended under caution Saturday night.
Hunter-Reay, the winner last week at the Milwaukee Mile, moved to second in the season standings with his seventh career IndyCar victory — the most among active U.S. drivers. The victory was Andrettti Autosport’s fourth in six races in Iowa.
Teammate Marco Andretti was second, followed by Tony Kanaan and Dixon.
ATP says blue
clay is not OK
for 2013 Madrid Open
LONDON — The blue clay that made Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic feel, well, blue at last month’s Madrid Open is going away.
In a posting on the tour’s website Saturday, ATP President Brad Drewett said he decided blue clay courts will not be allowed at tour events next season.
He said that while the new color, in place of the traditional red clay, “may have offered better visibility on television, there were clearly issues with the quality of the courts in Madrid this year, which were not acceptable.”
The ATP gave the Madrid tournament permission to test out the blue courts in 2012. After losses, Nadal and Djokovic said they didn’t like the way the courts played and vowed not to return in 2013 unless a change was made.
Roddick, Paszek win Eastbourne titles
EASTBOURNE, England —Andy Roddick’s confidence was boosted by winning the Eastbourne Championships on the eve of Wimbledon when he beat defending champion Andreas Seppi 6-3, 6-2 in the final Saturday.
Tamira Paszek of Austria fought off five match points to defeat fifth-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 in the women’s final.
Ferrer beats Petzschner to win Unicef Open
DEN BOSCH, Netherlands — Top-seeded David Ferrer beat unseeded Philipp Petzschner 6-3, 6-4 on Saturday to win the Unicef Open grass-court tournament for the second time, while Nadia Petrova defeated Urszula Radwanska 6-4, 6-3 to take the women’s title.
Ferrer, the 2008 champion, broke the German twice in the opening set and once in the second, closing the match by winning a game at love to comfortably earn a victory at the Wimbledon warm-up.
By wire sources