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Snooker: Mark Williams (picture) produced an imperious perfor-mance to defeat Hossein Vafaei 6-1 and reach the final of the Bank of Beijing China Open. Williams, who needs to win this event to qualify directly for the World Championship, is now one match away from pipping fellow Welshman Ryan Day to a seeded Crucible spot. The victory sees the 42-year-old from Ebbw Vale reach his 30th ranking final, where he will be looking to secure a fourth China Open crown against Mark Selby who beat Kyrian Wilson 6-4 in the other semi-final.
Basketball: Mississippi State pulled off a stunning buzzer-beater overtime win over women’s college basketball power Connecticut on Friday to bring an end to the Huskies’ 111-game winning streak. In the NCAA Tournament Final Four matchup, guard Morgan William hit a 10-foot jumper to seal the 66-64 victory and enable Mississippi State to do what no team had been able to since Connecticut were last beaten in November, 2014. The result meant that Connecticut (36-1) will not get a chance to add to a streak of four consecutive championships.
Tennis: Johanna Konta won the biggest title of her burgeoning career when she beat Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 6-3 in the women's final at the Miami Open yesterday. British tenth seed Konta used an aggressive game plan to overcome Danish Wozniacki on the Crandon Park hardcourt. She clinched victory with a perfectly-weighted lob that landed on the baseline for her second title of the year, after winning in Sydney in January.
Figure Skating: Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu’s exquisite all-round skating skills allowed him to overhaul a massive 10.66-point deficit as he struck gold to end Javier Fernandez’s two-year reign at the world figure skating championships yesterday. Although Hanyu’s Japanese team-mate Uno won the silver and China’s Jin completed an Asian sweep of the medals in the final world championships before next year’s Winter Games in Pyeongchang, they could not match the grace and precision that Hanyu brought to the ice.
Athletics: Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei broke the world half marathon record as well as the 10km and 15km marks at the Prague Half Marathon on the way to winning the IAAF Gold Label Road Race in one hour, four minutes and 52 seconds. The 23-year-old, who was competing in just her fifth half marathon, clocked splits of 30:05 and 45:37 to improve the 10km and 15km world records. Jepkosgei’s previous best was 1:06:08 in this year’s Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon.