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Verstappen Wins 3rd Straight Canadian Grand Prix for 60th Formula 1 Victory

Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen races during the 2024 Canada Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada, on June 9, 2024. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen races during the 2024 Canada Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada, on June 9, 2024. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
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Verstappen Wins 3rd Straight Canadian Grand Prix for 60th Formula 1 Victory

Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen races during the 2024 Canada Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada, on June 9, 2024. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen races during the 2024 Canada Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada, on June 9, 2024. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

Max Verstappen won the Canadian Grand Prix for the third straight year Sunday for the Red Bull star's 60th Formula 1 victory and sixth in nine races this season.
Verstappen started second in the rain alongside pole-sitter George Russell and dominated late again at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Ile Notre-Dame. The 26-year-old Dutchman has a staggering 50 victories in the last 75 F1 races.
Verstappen finished 3.879 seconds ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris in the 70-lap race on the 2.71-mile (4.36-kilometer) road course, The Associated Press reported. Last year, Verstappen started from the pole and led every lap.
The race Sunday started with a soaking wet track before the sun emerged 10 minutes in, but rain showers returned periodically throughout the afternoon.
“It’s a lot of fun to drive these kinds of races now and then,” Verstappen said. “You don’t want it all the time because that’s too stressful. But I had a lot of fun out there today.”
Norris lost a 10-second lead when Logan Sargeant brought put the safety car on Lap 26.
“We should have won the race today and we didn’t so, frustrating,” Norris said. “We had the pace. We should have won today. It’s as simple as that.”
Mercedes took the third and fourth spots, with Russell third and seven-time Montreal winner Lewis Hamilton fourth. Oscar Piastri was fifth for McLaren, followed by Aston Martin drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, the lone Canadian in the race.
“It was a tough track with the condition, so I’m really satisfied to score points,” Stroll said. “Lots of points, the sixth and seventh positions are really good for the team.”
Verstappen increased his season lead to 56 points over second-place Charles Leclerc of Ferrari.
“As a team, we made the right calls today,” said Verstappen, coming off a sixth-place finish in Monaco. “It’s great to have three wins in a row here. I hope I can add more in the future.”
On Lap 46, Norris stayed out while Verstappen and Russell pitted. Verstappen regained the lead three laps later when he squeezed past Norris as the McLaren driver came out of the pit lane. Verstappen hung onto the top spot the rest of the way.
Verstappen managed to avoid hitting a groundhog on Lap 31.
“He was almost dead,” Verstappen said. “I started to get to the last chicane and I thought it was debris initially. So, I started to close in and then I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s an animal.’ Last year, a bird flew into my car, so I didn’t want to have a groundhog stuck in my car as well.”
Verstappen joined Hamilton and Michael Schumacher as the only drivers to three-peat in Montreal. The three-time season champion is third on the career victory list behind Hamilton (103) and Michael Schumacher (91).
Ferrari had a terrible weekend. Leclerc retired on Lap 43 after gambling with his tire strategy and falling far behind, and Carlos Sainz exited later when he spun out.
“Just a very weak, disappointing weekend for the whole team,” Sainz said. “We never seemed to find pace.”
Organizers said 350,000 spectators made the trip to the track over the event’s three days.
Verstappen started second Sunday on a tiebreaker after having the same lap time as Russell in qualifying Saturday. Russell got the pole because he posted the time first.

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Gauff Drops Set but Beats Belinda Bencic to Reach Australian Open Quarterfinals

Coco Gauff of the US serves the ball to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP)
Coco Gauff of the US serves the ball to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP)
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Gauff Drops Set but Beats Belinda Bencic to Reach Australian Open Quarterfinals

Coco Gauff of the US serves the ball to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP)
Coco Gauff of the US serves the ball to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP)

Coco Gauff's consecutive-set streak ended at the Australian Open. Her bid for a second Grand Slam title continued on Sunday with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 comeback victory over Belinda Bencic in the fourth round.

Afterward, Gauff drew a broken heart on the lens of a courtside TV camera with the message, “RIP TikTok USA,” a reference to the ban of the popular app back home.

Until Sunday, Gauff — a 20-year-old from Florida who won the 2023 US Open as a teenager — had collected all 16 sets she'd played this year and 24 of her past 25 dating to the end of last season, which included a title at the WTA Finals.

“In the first set, she played great tennis, and it was tough for me to be on the offense,” Gauff said after grabbing the last five games against Bencic. “I just played more aggressively in the second set and then also the third set.”

The tournament's No. 3 seed was unable to control her shots well enough at the start against Bencic on a steamy early afternoon in Rod Laver Arena, where the temperature hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) and the blue playing surface was bathed in sunlight.

Spectators seated along the sides of the court fanned themselves; Gauff sought relief from cool air provided at the players' sideline benches and pressed an ice pack against her face during one break in the action.

As trouble mounted late in the first set, in which Bencic broke in each of Gauff's last two service games — one of which ended with a pair of double-faults — the American kept missing the mark, compiling a whopping 20 unforced errors.

When her shots would land into the net or too long or too wide, or Bencic's would fall beyond her reach, Gauff repeatedly turned toward her coaches' box and put her arms wide with palms up, as if to ask, “What am I supposed to do?” After some of her nine double-faults, Gauff slapped her leg.

But Gauff recalibrated after the hour-plus first set, accumulating points in bunches, repeatedly hammering returns of serve and doing a much better job of targeting spots from the baseline. In sum, she was very much back to her best self. Not only did Gauff cut her unforced errors in half in the second set, but she also put together a 17-2 edge in winners over that span.

By the end, Gauff was in total control, and she motioned to the crowd for more noise after a reflex volley to win a point in the final game.

“Obviously there’s still a lot to go for me to accomplish my goal,” Gauff said, “but I can say that I’m proud of myself and happy with how I performed.”

Part of the problem in the early going, to be sure, was that Bencic is a terrific ball-striker. Her current ranking of No. 294 is misleading: The 27-year-old from Switzerland, who reached a career best of No. 4, only returned to action in October from maternity leave.

Her best past results have arrived on hard courts, including a run to the semifinals of the US Open in 2019 and a singles gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She's now 0-3 in fourth-round matches at Melbourne Park, though, losing previously to International Tennis Hall of Fame member Maria Sharapova in 2016 and to eventual champion Aryna Sabalenka two years ago.

Gauff now faces No. 11 Paula Badosa in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. Badosa defeated Olga Danilovic 6-1, 7-6 (2) to get to the final eight in Melbourne for the first time.

The winner of Gauff vs. Badosa will play either No. 1 Sabalenka, who is seeking a third consecutive Australian Open title, or No. 27 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the 2021 French Open runner-up.

Sabalenka stretched her winning streak in Melbourne to 18 matches by defeating 14th-seeded Mirra Andreeva 6-1, 6-2, and Pavlyuchenkova beat No. 18 Donna Vekic 7-6 (0), 6-0.

Martina Hingis, from 1997 to 1999, was the last woman with three straight championships in Australia.

A year ago, Gauff reached the semifinals at Melbourne Park for the first time, before losing to Sabalenka.

One more win for each and they'll have a rematch in that round. They also met in the US Open final that Gauff won two seasons ago.

“For me, every match is a new opportunity. It’s a new game. You know, it doesn’t matter what happened in the past,” Sabalenka said. “For me, it’s about staying in the moment and focusing on myself and on bringing my best game, because I know that if I’ll be able to bring my best game, I know that I can get the win. So I’m trying to focus on myself.”

The first man into the quarterfinals was No. 12 Tommy Paul of the US, who beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-1, 6-1, 6-1. Paul, a semifinalist in Australia in 2023, will face No. 2 Alexander Zverev or No. 14 Ugo Humbert on Tuesday.