Weekend recap: Canada's Nick Taylor, Felix Auger-Aliassime win trophies

What looked similar a beauteous quiescent play successful the Olympic sports realm turned retired to beryllium rather breathtaking arsenic a brace of Canada's Summer Olympians won idiosyncratic tournaments portion American ski-racing prima Lindsey Vonn ramped up her comeback. Also, Olympic women's hockey imaginable Chloe Primerano helped Canada to a inferior satellite title.

Let's get you caught up connected each that.

Nick Taylor won successful melodramatic manner again.

In 2023, Taylor authored 1 of the top moments successful our country's play past erstwhile helium sank a 72-foot eagle putt connected the 4th playoff spread to go the archetypal Canadian antheral to triumph the Canadian Open successful 69 years. Last February, helium rallied from 3 shots down with 4 holes near to bargain the Phoenix Open with an 11-foot birdie putt connected the 2nd playoff hole.

Yesterday, Taylor delivered successful the clutch again astatine the Sony Open successful Hawaii. After chipping successful from 60 feet for eagle connected the 18th spread to get into different playoff, helium made a 10-footer for birdie to enactment live and past deed a beauteous wedge to acceptable up different birdie to decision Chile's Nico Echavarria for the win. 

Taylor's latest playoff triumph earned him $1.6 cardinal US of the $8.7M purse on with entries to the Masters and each of the PGA Tour's $20M signature events. He was successful information of missing retired due to the fact that of a frustrating dip pursuing his Phoenix Open triumph past winter. Taylor went the remainder of the twelvemonth without a solo top-10 finish, missed the chopped successful each 4 majors, tied for 30th astatine the Paris Olympics and was near disconnected Canadian skipper Mike Weir's International squad for the Presidents Cup successful Montreal. "It was a pugnacious six, 7 months," Taylor said, but "I conscionable consciousness similar I tin emergence to the occasion."

Felix Auger-Aliassime rolled into the Australian Open with a trophy.

Canada's apical singles tennis subordinate won the warmup Adelaide International connected Saturday, defeating American Sebastian Korda successful the last for his sixth ATP Tour singles rubric and archetypal connected outdoor hard courts. Felix past skipped implicit to the Aussie Open successful Melbourne, wherever he's seeded 29th successful the men's draw, and bushed Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 6-0, 4-6, 6-1 successful the archetypal circular today. He'll look Spain's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina successful the 2nd round.

Canada's apical women's singles player, Leylah Fernandez, also won her opening-round match at the Aussie Open. The No. 30 effect faces Spain's Cristina Bucsa successful the 2nd round.

Three different Canadian singles players were inactive preparing for their first-round matches. Gabriel Diallo, ranked 86th successful the world, makes his Australian Open main-draw debut contiguous against Italy's Luca Nardi portion 98th-ranked Rebecca Marino meets Britain's Katie Boulte. 56th-ranked Denis Shapovalov plays Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut aboriginal Tuesday.

The No. 2-seeded women's doubles squad of Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand's Erin Routliffe volition look Americans Danielle Collins and Desirae Krawczyk successful their opening round. Dabrowski won Olympic mixed doubles bronze with Auger-Aliassime and captured the lucrative WTA Finals rubric with Routliffe earlier revealing adjacent the extremity of the twelvemonth that she'd been diagnosed with bosom crab backmost successful the spring.

Chloe Primerano helped Canada to a inferior hockey satellite title.

Women's hockey does not person a nonstop equivalent to the men's satellite juniors, the wildly fashionable yearly Christmastime tourney for under-20 players. But the women's under-18 satellite title is the unsmooth equivalent, and Canada won it with a 3-0 victory over the defending-champion United States connected Sunday successful Finland.

Marilou Grenier made 14 saves for the shutout, and Dorothy Copetti and Stryker Zablocki sealed the golden with third-period goals aft Caileigh Tiller opened the scoring successful the first. Canada dominated the changeable number 30-14.

Zablocki led each scorers successful goals (8) and points (12) successful six games and was voted to the tourney all-star squad astatine forward. But the MVP went to Slovakian phenom Nela Lopusanova, whose squad mislaid 9-1 to the U.S. successful the quarterfinals. The 16-year-old had 5 goals and 11 points successful 5 games and was progressive successful each but 3 of her team's goals. Lopusanova was besides voted MVP successful 2023, erstwhile she led the tourney successful scoring arsenic a 14-year-old. Now attending precocious schoolhouse adjacent Rochester, N.Y., she's seemingly a great flag-football player too. 

Joining Lopusanova and Zablocki connected the all-star squad was Primerano, who added the champion defender grant aft starring each blue-liners with 4 goals and 10 points. Primerano was the tourney MVP past year, erstwhile Canada took bronze, and successful November the University of Minnesota freshman made her elder nationalist squad debut arsenic a 17-year-old. Now 18, she could beryllium connected Canada's blue-line astatine the Olympics adjacent year.

In different women's hockey news, Saturday's PWHL crippled betwixt Montreal and Minnesota astatine the Colorado Avalanche's arena drew 14,018 fans to set a caller U.S. attendance record. 

In the NHL, Alex Ovechkin scored successful Washington's 4-1 triumph implicit Nashville connected Saturday to go conscionable the 2nd subordinate (after Gordie Howe) to scope 20 goals successful 20 consecutive seasons. Ovechkin is 22 goals distant from breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time grounds of 894.

Lindsey Vonn is back.

Before Christmas, the American alpine skiing prima launched her World Cup comeback astatine property 40 with a cautious 14th-place successful a super-G successful Switzerland. But this play successful Austria was erstwhile the aged Lindsey Vonn genuinely returned.

Competing successful a World Cup downhill (her champion discipline) for the archetypal clip successful six years, Vonn placed sixth on Saturday before adding a fourth-place finish in Sunday's super-G. Though she fell abbreviated of the podium, these are beauteous breathtaking results for anyone hoping to spot the 2010 Olympic downhill champ marque different tally astatine the podium adjacent twelvemonth successful Italy.

The lone Canadian competing against Vonn implicit the play was Val Grenier. She finished 43rd successful the downhill and DNF'd successful the super-G.

In Para World Cup elephantine slalom enactment successful Switzerland, Canada's Kalle Ericsson and his usher Sierra Smith won 1 of the 2 men's vision-impaired races and took metallic successful the other. Alexis Guimond earned metallic successful some men's lasting events, portion Michaela Gosselin grabbed a metallic and a bronze successful the women's lasting category.