No. 4 seed Peyton Stearns captured her second career singles title by taking down fellow American Taylor Townsend in the ATX Open final, 7-6 (8), 7-5 on Sunday afternoon in Austin, Texas.

In a grueling two-hour, 22-minute match, Stearns was able to outlast Townsend by hitting eight aces and saving four of seven break points. Stearns was an All-American and national singles champion and part of two NCAA team titles at the University of Texas in Austin and thrived with the faux home-court advantage.

In the first set, Stearns was broken on her very first serve and faced a double set point down 5-3. She saved both set points and then proceeded to win 10 of the next 11 points. Despite failing to convert four set points of her own during the tiebreak, Stearns sealed the deal after saving another Townsend set point to steal the first set.

Merida Open Akron

Spain’s Cristina Bucsa capped her dream run as she bested Poland’s Magdalena Frech 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 to claim her first-ever tour-level title in Merida, Mexico.

After upsetting top-seeded Italian Jasmine Paolini in the semifinal, Bucsa converted five break points and 32 of her 43 first service points (74.4%) against Frech. She came out hot by taking Frech’s first serve of the match and, even with getting broken once herself, cruised through the first set.

Bucsa dropped her first set of the entire tournament in the second, but bounced back in the decisive third set by jumping ahead to a 4-1 lead. She had a chance to win the match on her own serve, but Frech broke her. Bucsa then broke her back on the very next service to seal the match and the title.

–Field Level Media

Business is presumably booming at the Seattle Kraken’s souvenir store.

Because a lot of fans are again unnecessarily in need of a new hat entering Monday’s game against the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.

For the second time in five weeks, Kraken fans rained their headwear down on the ice at Climate Pledge Arena thinking one of the home team’s players had netted a hat trick with three goals.

And for the second time, Matty Beniers nixed the party hats.

Back on Jan. 27 against Washington, a delayed penalty against Beniers — called by a linesman, so neither referee hand their arms raised — wiped away a hat trick by Jared McCann.

It happened again Saturday in a 5-1 victory against Vancouver.

Captain Jordan Eberle, who tallied on a breakaway in the second period, appeared to score a power-play goal at 11:56 of the third when he took a pass in the left-wing corner, skated to the front of the net and stuffed the puck past the Canucks’ goaltender and just inside the far post.

When Eberle scored into an empty net with three minutes left, fans littered the ice with their hats.

But they were unaware the official scorer had changed Eberle’s previous goal, which apparently glanced off the toe of Beniers’ skate.

“I think we owe the fans some hats,” said Eberle, who has a team-leading 22 goals this season.

After McCann’s fiasco, the Kraken announced a “Hat Tricked” promo which allowed 1,000 fans who were in attendance to fill out a form to receive a new hat.

There was no immediate word on whether the Kraken would do that again after Saturday’s mishap.

Eberle (two goals, one assist) and Chandler Stephenson (one goal, two assists) both had three-point nights for the Kraken, who snapped a two-game skid. Seattle currently holds the second and final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, three points ahead of the San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators and Los Angeles Kings.

“I liked our consistency from start to finish,” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said. “It was nice for us putting some pucks on net. We had talked about shot mentality. I still think we can do a better job of that. … If you look at the first two goals, we’ve got traffic (net front), and that’s the way you’re going to have to score down the stretch.”

The Hurricanes, who are riding a five-game winning streak and have points in 12 straight (10-0-2), lead the Metropolitan Division and are first overall in the Eastern Conference with 82 points.

The Hurricanes are opening a four-game trip that will also take them to Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary in a span of six days.

They are coming off a 5-2 victory Saturday against visiting Detroit. Taylor Hall and Shayne Gostisbehere each had a goal and two assists in the win.

“There was a stretch there where we took our foot off the gas and it didn’t look so good, but I thought overall the D played really well,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said.

This will be the second and final regular-season meeting between the teams. Carolina rallied with two goals in the final 10 minutes to win 3-2 on Jan. 10 in Raleigh, N.C., snapping Seattle’s 10-game point streak (8-0-2).

–Field Level Media

The Golden State Warriors on Sunday said Stephen Curry will miss the next five games before his right knee injury is re-evaluated.

Curry, who hasn’t played since Jan. 30, is officially out for Monday’s home game against the Los Angeles Clippers with “right patellofemoral pain syndrome,” also called “runner’s knee.” It’s an overuse condition that is marked by pain around the kneecap.

In addition to the Clippers game, Curry will miss the Warriors’ three-game road trip to Houston, Oklahoma City and Utah and a home game against Chicago on March 10. The soonest he could be back is March 13 against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Warriors have said Curry is making progress but is not doing work on the court yet.

Golden State (31-29) is in eighth place in the Western Conference and just 4-6 in the games Curry has missed before and after the All-Star break. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Warriors 129-101 on Saturday.

–Field Level Media