Shiho Kuwaki held her nerve to beat Esther Henseleit in a two-hole play-off to become the second consecutive Japanese player to win the Women’s Open.
A gripping finale at Royal Lytham & St Annes was brimming with drama, magic and misfortune – particularly on the crucial 18th hole.
Henseleit initially forced an extension to play by sinking a 45-foot birdie putt to draw level at five under par with Kuwaki, who sat nervously inside the clubhouse watching on.
However, after both made pars in distinctly different fashion on the first sudden-death play-off hole, Henseleit was left in difficulty when her drive hit a course marshal and was redirected into a gorse bush.
When she was unable to save her par, that effectively allowed Kuwaki two putts to secure the top prize of £1.11m just 12 months after failing to make the cut at Royal Porthcawl.
“I just can’t believe it,” said Kuwaki, whose previous five wins as a professional had all arrived on her home tour.
“To be on a stage like this is an honour and every hole I was just focused on shot by shot. I just tried to enjoy it as much as I could.
“It’s an amazing feeling to win again as a Japanese player. I hope as team Japan we can continue to light up the golf world.”
Defending champion Norris wins his first race of the year as Verstappen finishes second and leader Antonelli is third.
Published On 26 Jul 202626 Jul 2026
Lando Norris has ended an eight-month wait for a Formula One victory with strong pace and a dose of good fortune to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.
McLaren’s defending champion finished ahead of Max Verstappen in Red Bull and teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli at the Hungaroring circuit in Budapest on Sunday.
Norris was on pole but lost the lead to his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri when he ran wide at the second corner, before reclaiming the lead after Piastri was delayed by a collision with Carlos Sainz Jr during a lap.
This allowed Norris to come out of the pits ahead of his teammate and cruise to a win.
“The car was unbelievable today, well done guys, incredible. We were flying,” Norris said. “Nice to finally be able to do it all for you. Feels like it’s been a while.”
Piastri then stopped with a broken gearbox, paving the way for Verstappen to take second, with Antonelli third.
Antonelli increased his standings lead, with title rival Lewis Hamilton finishing fifth after a penalty for speeding in the pits and George Russell seventh after a near-stall at the start.
Norris hadn’t won a full Grand Prix race since Sao Paulo in November, though he did win a sprint in Miami in May.
Hungary was the last race before the mid-season break. The next race is the Dutch Grand Prix on August 23.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, McLaren’s Lando Norris, Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton in action during the race [Bernadett Szabo/Reuters]
Mateo Chavez opened the scoring in the 55th minute, and Julian Quinones scored his second goal of the tournament in the 61st.
Published On 25 Jun 202625 Jun 2026
Mateo Chavez and Julian Quinones scored goals in the span of six minutes early in the second half, and Mexico beat Czechia 3-0 to win all three of its World Cup group-stage matches for the first time.
The 22-year-old Chavez, in his first World Cup, opened the scoring in the 55th minute, and Quinones scored his second goal of the tournament in the 61st. Alvaro Fidalgo added a goal in second-half stoppage time on Wednesday night.
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Mexico’s previous best group-stage performance was two wins and one draw, achieved in 1986 and 2002, both featuring Javier Aguirre, the first as a midfielder and the second as El Tri’s coach.
Already the winner of Group A, Mexico will play again at Azteca Stadium on Tuesday in a round-of-32 match against an opponent to be determined.
Czechia were eliminated, finishing with one point in three games.
The match included nods to Mexico’s past and future. Gilberto Mora became the youngest Mexico player to start in a World Cup at age 17.
Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa is celebrated by his team after the World Cup Group A match between Czechia and Mexico in Mexico City, June 24, 2026 [Natacha Pisarenko/AP]
Homophobic chant returns in Azteca Stadium
Fans at the game chanted a slur that has previously led to fines and other sanctions against Mexico’s Football Federation.
The slur, which literally means “male prostitute” in Spanish, could be heard at the Azteca Stadium towards the end of the first half when Czech goalkeeper Matej Kovar took a goal kick, according to The Associated Press news agency.
The chant has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines levied by FIFA. It rose to popularity roughly 25 years ago and is used to intimidate goalkeepers when they take goal kicks.
It went viral in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and was heard again in Russia during the 2018 World Cup, and then again four years later in Qatar. It has persisted despite attempts by the Mexican Football Federation to stop it.
Brenda Jaimes pushed her way through an ecstatic crowd in downtown Santa Ana Thursday night, stopping in the middle of Fourth Street and calling attention to herself by shouting, “Me! Me!”
Fans blew horns and spun noisemakers, chanting “México!” and “¡Sí se puede!” They brandished the Mexican flag seemingly everywhere: on banners, painted on cheeks, emblazoned on Jaimes’ tube top. They stood on the back of trucks and boogied.
An Orange County Fire Authority truck flashed its sirens to cheers. A line of drivers cruised down Fourth Street — the historic cultural and economic heart of Latino Orange County — to high-five the crowd and let people shake their cars as if everyone was inside a bounce house.
Jaimes wanted something more dramatic.
She lay down in the arms of some men wearing green Mexico soccer jerseys. They counted to three, launched her a good 8 feet upward, then effortlessly caught the laughing Jaimes.
Scenes like this replicated themselves across Southern California after the match, from Koreatown to Boyle Heights to Pacoima to Huntington Park — really, anywhere with a big Latino population. It happens any time Mexico wins big in soccer. But the pachanga was even more pronounced in Santa Ana.
A year earlier, Fourth Street was empty. Federal immigration agents were seizing people across the city. The National Guard set up a roadblock complete with an armed Humvee for over a month, just a block away from where Jaimes and so many others celebrated.
One of the most Latino big cities in the country trembled in fear. On Thursday night, Santa Ana erupted in joy.
“This here is the antithesis of the raids last year,” said Sandra De Anda, who wore a Stetson and a Tigres Mexican soccer club jersey and waved a South Korea flag. She’s the director of policy and legal strategy at the Orange County Rapid Response Network.
Last June, the Santa Ana native joined thousands as they marched down Fourth Street for days demanding that ICE and the National Guard leave town. Through the rest of 2025, she and others in the Rapid Response Network fought la migra in courthouses and through fundraisers for immigrant detainees and their loved ones.
“They tried to take our community down, but they had no chance,” De Anda added as her boyfriend rushed off to join the celebration. “We Mexicans always get beat down, but we have pride. Tonight, you see how we stand up when we need to.”
Jaimes agreed.
“It’s so important to do this especially after last year,” she told me after her short turn as a Cirque du Soleil performer. “We don’t care what Trump can say about this. It was his birthday recently — who cares? This right here is real.”
Another young woman shrieked as she sailed above us. Jaimes pointed at her, then looked at me. “Throw yourself también [also], bro!”
I stuck to slapping the hoods and windows of so many cars that my hand turned black with soot.
Mexico soccer fans shake a car cruising down Fourth Street in downtown Santa Ana after Mexico’s 1-0 World Cup win over South Korea on Thursday.
(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)
Seeing Mexico become the first country to win its World Cup group would be thrilling any year. But in 2026, when Trump continues to meddle in Latin American affairs while his migra goons keep launching raids across the country, the satisfaction hits that much more.
Few things irk Trump and his followers more than Mexicans succeeding at anything. Eleven years ago this week, he announced his presidential campaign by stating that Mexico was “not sending its best” immigrants but instead, people he claimed were mostly rapists and drug dealers. Trump has spent his two terms obsessing over the U.S.-Mexico border, attacking anything that reeks of diversity and demeaning Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as if she were a junior executive at one of his many failed companies.
Conservatives and more than a few liberals always get furious when Mexican Americans wave the flag of their ancestral homeland — but rooting for Mexico’s soccer team especially brings out the venom. Fans far outnumber supporters of the U.S. soccer team during matches in this country, which brings on accusations of treason against Mexican Americans even though other diasporas do the same, with nowhere near the same opprobrium.
Haters don’t get why so many Mexican Americans root for El Tri. The team embodies what it means to be Mexican: They’re a good group of folks who always seem to get bad breaks and never seem to win against the powers that be — but never stop fighting for a better day, while having fun doing so.
That’s why Americans of all ethnicities should back Mexico along with the U.S. side in this World Cup, which Trump has already sullied. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied a Somali referee entry into this country because he allegedly was “talking to some very bad people,” per the White House World Cup task force. The Trump administration is forcing Iran’s squad to base its training camp in Tijuana, which means players have to fly to matches in Los Angeles and Seattle instead of taking every other team’s short bus trip.
Every Mexico victory should give solace to the underdogs of the world and affirm the belief that a communion of nations engaged in friendly rivalries is better than Trump’s proclivity for launching indiscriminate raids and bombings. To cheer for Mexico is about as American as you can get right now.
Sydney Tran took her turn at the Fourth Street procession in a Honda Civic packed with friends. The crowd shook her car with such vigor that the 23-year-old Westminster resident couldn’t turn up the music like people shouted at her to do.
“This is crazy!” yelled Tran, who wore a Mexico soccer jersey. “I’m Vietnamese, but this is wonderful to see my Mexican friends so happy. They deserve to be happy — it’s been rough for them. It’s been rough for all immigrants.”
Mexico fans celebrate a goal while watching a FIFA World Cup soccer Group A matchup between Mexico and South Korea in Boyle Heights on Thursday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
The festivities were still going strong when I left. Restaurants that were usually closed by 10 p.m. had lines out the door. Dance parties sprouted on sidewalks. Rancheras, funk and oldies blasted everywhere. The police were nowhere to be seen, unlike last year, when they broke up the anti-ICE protests with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Cynicism shot through me for a second. Mexico, which won on a fluke goal and two miraculous saves, stands virtually no chance of beating soccer titans like France and Argentina once the knockout stage of the World Cup begins. Trump’s immigration team vows that more raids are forthcoming. And I can only hope that the overwhelmingly young crowd will take the passion they showed for Mexican soccer to the ballot box this November.
Then I chilled out.
Everyone around me got to breathe and scream and let out their frustrations about our nation in the most delightful way imaginable. Reality would return the next morning — but for one night, for a few hours, life was wonderful for Mexican Americans, and better days ahead seemed possible. Sí se puede, indeed.
