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ABC News
a day ago
- Sport
- ABC News
Daria Kasatkina aiming for Australian Billie Jean King Cup debut in Tasmania
Australia will host a Billie Jean King Cup tie in Tasmania in November, with Daria Kasatkina hoping she'll be cleared to be in contention to make her debut for her adopted country in the world cup of women's tennis. The draw for the play-offs was made in London on Thursday when it was revealed that Sam Stosur's Australia team will host a three-pronged play-off tie against Brazil and Portugal in Hobart between November 14 and 16. Kasatkina, the new Australian number one after gaining permanent residence in March, has previously competed in the Billie Jean King Cup for her native Russia. The 28-year-old said she was hopeful of making her debut in the green and gold this year. She admitted, however, it was still unclear when and if she would get clearance to play. "Talking about the Billie Jean King Cup, that process is more complicated, which is not depending on me," she told reporters. "It's something which Tennis Australia has to deal with the ITF [International Tennis Federation]. This is where it's already different language. I'm not going to be the part of it. This is where the federation has to deal with the ITF." If she does get clearance and is selected, the Australian team would be a strong favourite to top its three-team round-robin group at Hobart's Domain Tennis Centre against two teams that don't have the same depth to call on. Even without Kasatkina, the world number 16, Stosur has rising teenager star Maya Joint (number 52), Ajla Tomljanović (number 66) and Kim Birrell (number 79) to choose from in the top 100, while Olivia Gadecki is 104. Grand slam finalist Ellen Perez is the 16th-ranked doubles player in the world. In contrast, Brazil has only one stand-out player in 21st-ranked Beatriz Haddad Maia, with their next two on the WTA computer being the number 219 Laura Pigossi and number 240 Carolina Alves. The Portuguese will be the rank outsiders, with their hopes resting on two sisters, 21-year-old Matilde Jorge (number 251) and her 25-year-old sibling Francisca, who's at 259. Stosur's team will be hoping to get back among the elite next year by winning the November tie after failing to reach this season's week-long final which will be held in Shenzhen, China, in September. Play-offs draw: Group A: (Monterrey, Mexico): Canada, Mexico, Denmark Group B: (Gorzow Wielkopolski, Poland): Poland, Romania, New Zealand Group C: (Cordoba, Argentina): Slovakia, Switzerland, Argentina Group D: (Varazdin, Croatia): Czech Republic, Colombia, Croatia Group E: (Hobart, Australia): Australia, Brazil, Portugal Group F: (Ismaning, Germany): Germany, Belgium, Turkey Group G: (Bengaluru, India): Netherlands, Slovenia, India AAP
CBC
2 days ago
- Sport
- CBC
After prolific college career, top prospect Casey O'Brien aims to bring 'fearless' game to PWHL
Inside Casey O'Brien's bedroom closet at home in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., you'll find several pieces of paper, some with words and others with pictures, taped to the inside of the door. They're a visual reminder of everything she wants to achieve in hockey, and a glimpse of what she's working toward every time she opens the closet door. As she checked goals one off the list, she'd move each slip of paper from one side of the closet to the opposite. Earning a Division 1 college hockey scholarship? She checked that off when she went to the University of Wisconsin. Making the Under-18 Women's World Championship? O'Brien did that twice, and won gold with Team USA in 2018. Winning a national championship? She did that three times in five seasons with the University of Wisconsin Badgers, including this past season. Winning the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best player in college hockey? She was finally able to cross that goal off the list in her 5th year of college. Her 88 points in 41 games this past season earned her the award over Wisconsin teammates Laila Edwards and Caroline Harvey. It wasn't on her list of goals to become Wisconsin's all-time leading scorer with 265 career points, surpassing women's hockey legend Hilary Knight in the process. She couldn't have imagined that. But she did that, too. By next week, she'll achieve another goal she didn't know was possible when she started visualizing her dreams: getting drafted into the PWHL. The 2025 PWHL Draft is set for June 24 in Ottawa, and O'Brien is projected to be drafted high in the first round, thanks to her hockey IQ, vision and skating. She's a 200-foot centre who can drive her own line, fuelled by pure competitiveness and smarts. "She's the kind of player you can build a team around," said Gordie Stafford, who coached O'Brien in prep school at Shattuck-St. Mary's. 'She plays fearless' O'Brien started playing hockey because her older brothers, Max and Jack, were doing it. Her father was the coach of a house league team in New York City, where the family lived at the time. He let her hop on the ice to give the sport a try with her brothers. From the moment her skates hit the ice, O'Brien knew it was going to be her passion. When she was a kid, she set the goal of becoming an Olympian. The PWHL didn't exist back then, and O'Brien wasn't sure it was possible to be a professional female hockey player. So she decided she would become a coach after going to the Olympics. "I knew from like five or six that hockey was what I wanted to do for my whole life," she said. Paul Vincent met O'Brien a couple years later. Right away, he knew O'Brien was an athlete. She was wired for it. The long-time skills and skating coach, who's worked with NHL players for more than two decades, brought O'Brien to the rink one day to show his pro group how she skates. That group included Chris Kreider and the late Jimmy Hayes. O'Brien was only 10 or 11 at the time. "Her vision while skating is really, really good," Vincent said. "She has great lateral mobility, the ability to cut and turn on a dime. And she's fast." O'Brien went to a Shattuck-St. Mary's hockey camp when she was 12. After one on-ice session, Team USA players Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux told Stafford that he had to recruit O'Brien to the Minnesota prep school. She was the best player they'd seen at the camp. "She's always just been such a fluid, wonderful skater, but she's one of those ones who her hockey IQ, and her finesse with her hands, correlates well with her foot speed," Stafford said. "You can have kids with good hands and kind of slow feet or whatever, but she's got a combination of everything." WATCH | Did the PWHL's expansion draft go too far? Did the PWHL expansion draft go too far? 8 days ago Duration 1:18 CBC Sports' Karissa Donkin explains how the league's two newest teams, Seattle and Vancouver, have rosters ready to win right away. O'Brien would spend three seasons at the school. Many times, coaches at the prep school focus on teaching their teenaged hockey players the fundamentals, including how to show up every day and work hard. But O"Brien already knew how to do that. She learned from an early age how to channel her competitiveness. Over two decades at Shattuck-St. Mary's, Stafford has coached lots of future pros and Olympians. The ones who are most successful are players he calls killers, who have the competitive fire to be at their best when it matters the most. O'Brien fits into that category. Since she's left Shattuck, Stafford will text O'Brien from time to time. Sometimes, he'll send her a picture of a lion or another wild predator. "Because that's what she is on the ice, offensively," he said. Dominant Badgers team In her final season at Wisconsin, O'Brien was one piece of a stacked roster that also included Edwards, Harvey, Kirsten Simms and Lacey Eden, to name a few. O'Brien was cleared to play only days before the season began, after she had off-season wrist surgery to fix a lingering issue. But that didn't hold her, or the Badgers, back. The team finished with a 38-1-2 record, and O'Brien had a dominant season offensively on the way to smashing Knight's record. The latter is something that's hard for her to grasp, having grown up watching Knight compete in an American jersey. Knight even texted her before the game, telling O'Brien she hoped she'd break her record. "I do think it's a reflection of the teams that I've been on at Wisconsin, the teammates I've been fortunate enough to play with and just whatever contributions I've been able to make for the team," she said. When O'Brien, Edwards and Harvey were named the top-three finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Award, it was was only the second time in history that all three finalists came from the same school. As competitive as she is on the ice, and as much as winning the award was a goal, O'Brien said there wasn't a sense of competition between her teammates when it came time for the award ceremony. All three knew the top prize would be coming back to Wisconsin. "We were just kind of happy that the school was represented and all of our focus was on winning the national championship," she said. They capped the season off with a thrilling 4-3 overtime win over Ohio State. Using her size as an advantage At only five-foot-four, O'Brien will be one of the smaller players in the PWHL. She'll be facing tight, checking hockey that's a step up from the NCAA. It's not the first time O'Brien's size has been brought up, and it won't be the last. But she's built her game around her size. O'Brien has modelled her game after players like Kendall Coyne Schofield and the late Johnny Gaudreau — undersized players who've learned to use their size to their advantage. "Growing up, I learned pretty quickly that being smaller does have its advantages," she said. "I have a lower centre of gravity. I think that helps with my skating and just being strong on my feet, so when I get into tighter situations, I'm almost able to escape a little easier." Vincent also drew a comparison to Gaudreau. O'Brien has the same elusiveness and ability to outsmart her opponents. After recovering from shoulder surgery, O'Brien should have a long off-season to prepare for the PWHL. She plans to focus on her quick release, as her game has evolved from being a playmaker to a goal scorer. In the words of Vincent, she has become a more complete player. She'll return to training with him once her shoulder heals. After the draft, she could find herself heading to New York, which has the first pick in the draft. She could team up with star forward Sarah Fillier on a line. Or she could be an offensive threat beside Alina Müller on the Boston Fleet, which will pick second. Going first overall would be an honour, O'Brien said, but she's not too concerned with how high she's picked. She wants it to be a good fit. "I want to contribute right away," she said. "I want to be an impact player, and I want my style of game to fit whatever the team system is." Olympic dream Back in her room in Martha's Vineyard, there's another goal still lingering on her closet door, incomplete. That's going to the Olympics with Team USA and winning a gold medal. O'Brien has gotten a taste of wearing an American jersey with the senior national team after playing in the Rivalry Series. It's the dream she's had since she started playing hockey, and the thing that drives her every day. "I feel like I am there, just my ability and the performance that I've had," she said. Whether it's on the world stage with Team USA or wherever she ends up in the PWHL, the coach who's watched her grow up has no doubt about one thing. "I think she'll be a star," Vincent said. "I really do."
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Caitlin Clark Gets Strong Words From Colin Cowherd Amid Fever Season
Caitlin Clark Gets Strong Words From Colin Cowherd Amid Fever Season originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark missed over two weeks of action due to a quad strain. But she returned on Saturday and put on an absolute show. Advertisement Against Sabrina Ionescu and the defending WNBA champions New York Liberty, she had one of her best games as a pro. She nailed 11 of her 20 shot attempts and went 7-of-14 from 3-point range to score 32 points, and she also had nine assists, eight rebounds and two blocks in a 102-88 Indiana victory. Fox Sports 1 personality Colin Cowherd had some monumental praise for Clark by calling that performance "the greatest moment in league history," and he even compared it to NBA legend Kobe Bryant's 81-point game back in 2006. According to Cowherd, WNBA ratings plummeted 55% while Clark was out. Indeed, she has single-handedly elevated the league and all of women's basketball dating back to the spring of 2024. Advertisement Women's basketball had long been a punchline and was considered vastly inferior to the men's iteration of the sport. But when Clark blazed through her final season at Iowa and became the NCAA's all-time scoring leader among both women and men, the nation couldn't help but take notice and love what they saw from her. Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark hoists a shot while New York Liberty forward Kennedy Burke Ruszkowski-Imagn Images Thanks largely to her, WNBA ratings and attendance spiked last year, and over the last couple of years, she has formed a rivalry with Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky. Some have even compared it to the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird that made the NBA a legitimate pro sports league in the 1980s. The Fever now have a 5-5 record and are hoping to heat up now that their franchise player is back. They will face the Connecticut Sun in Commissioner's Cup play on Tuesday. Advertisement Related: Caitlin Clark's Outfit Choice at NBA Game Catches Attention This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 17, 2025, where it first appeared.
Fox News
08-06-2025
- Sport
- Fox News
Coco Gauff wins Women's French Open
She's the first American to win the French Open women's title since Serena Williams in 2015 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit FOX News Radio
CTV News
05-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
PWHL Vancouver adds goaltender Maschmeyer, forward Nurse
Ottawa Charge goalie Emerance Maschmeyer (38) makes the save against the Toronto Sceptres during third period PWHL action in Edmonton, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson / The Canadian Press) Vancouver's Professional Women's Hockey League team continued to add to its initial roster Thursday by signing goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer to a two-year contract and forward Sarah Nurse to a one-year deal. Maschmeyer spent the last two seasons with the Ottawa Charge. She was one of the franchise's three foundational signings in the PWHL's inaugural season, but she sustained a season-ending lower-body injury in March. Gwyneth Philips was excellent in relief as the Charge advanced to the Walter Cup final, and the 30-year-old Maschmeyer was left unprotected by Ottawa heading into the exclusive signing period and expansion draft to stock the rosters of the teams in Vancouver and Seattle that start play in 2026. Maschmeyer from Bruderheim, Alta., had 15 wins with two shutouts, a goals-against-average of 2.42 and save percentage of .914 over two seasons in Ottawa. Nurse was one of the Toronto Sceptres first three signings. She had six goals and eight assists in 21 games last season, despite missing nearly two months with injury. The 30-year-old from Hamilton added one assist in four playoff contests before the Sceptres were ousted from the semifinals by the Minnesota Frost, who went on to win the Walter Cup for the second year in a row. Nurse — cousin of WNBA star Kia Nurse and Edmonton Oilers defender Darnell Nurse — is a two-time Olympian, winning gold for Canada at the 2022 Games in Beijing and bringing home silver from Pyeongchang in 2018. The moves were another splash by Vancouver general manager Cara Gardner Morey, who opened the signing period Wednesday by luring defenders Claire Thompson and Sophie Jaques away from the Frost. Both players are finalists for the league's defender of the year award. 'Joining Vancouver is an incredible opportunity, and I'm thrilled to be a part of such an exciting chapter of the league's expansion,' Maschmeyer said in a release. 'Vancouver has proven to be a vibrant hockey city and I'm thrilled to play in front of such passionate fans. I'm aligned with Cara's vision and values and honoured to have the opportunity to help build this organization's culture from the ground up.' Both players were on Canada's Olympic championship team at the 2022 Beijing Games. Nurse has also represented Canada at six women's world championships, winning three gold medals, while Maschmeyer has played at three worlds. 'I am so honoured to be joining PWHL Vancouver, finally bringing professional women's hockey to the West Coast,' Nurse said in a release. 'I already got a taste of the passion last year during the Takeover Tour and can't wait to experience that daily.' The Charge also lost forward Danielle Serdachny to Seattle. As a result, they were able to add American forward Gabbie Hughes as a fourth protected player. The Montreal Victoire also lost their first player to the expansion process, with Seattle signing defender Cayla Barnes to a three-year deal. Barnes, from Eastvale, Calif., tied for the Victoire lead in scoring among defenders and ranked fifth among all PWHL rookies with 13 points (two goals, 11 assists) in 30 games. Expansion teams have an exclusive window to sign a maximum of five players up until 5 p.m. ET Sunday. The expansion draft is Monday. Seattle and Vancouver will select a minimum of seven players until each has reached a 12-player roster. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2025.
