American figure skating sensation Ilia Malinin sheepishly grinned when his closest rival, Japanese star Yuma Kagiyama, said what seems to be on everyone’s minds these days: “I’m starting to think he’s invincible.”

Malinin, 20, certainly looked that way at the world championships Thursday night in Boston.

Reigning world champion Malinin delivered a season-best short program, giving the American star a slim lead over Kagiyama in what has quickly become a two-man race to this year’s title.

Malinin delivered a pair of quads and a triple axel to score 110.41 points, just more than three points off the world record set by Nathan Chen at the 2022 Winter Olympics. It was enough to keep Malinin in first when Kagiyama followed with a score of 107.09 — about a point off his career-best.

In the pairs competition, Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan returned to the top step of the podium after losing their world title a year ago. Their season-best free skate, left them with 219.79 points — just 71-hundredths ahead of Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany.

GOLF

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy wanted a final tune-up before the Masters and spent parts of Thursday at the Houston Open under an umbrella in wind and rain that prevented anyone from getting too far away.

Keith Mitchell made a late eagle and Ryan Gerard let a good start slip away by finishing with two bogeys. They both wound up at 5-under 65, tied for the lead with Alejandro Tosti and Taylor Pendrith when play was suspended.

Scheffler played bogey-free and made a pair of long birdies on the back nine that added to a 67, leaving him two shots behind.

McIlroy, coming off his second victory of the year at The Players Championship two weeks ago, had two birdies on par 5s, and two bogeys for a 70.

Charley Hull turned in a bogey-free card of 9-under 63 that gave her a one-shot lead over Nanna Koertz Madsen in the opening round at the LPGA’s Ford Championship in Chandler, Ariz.

TENNIS

Novak Djokovic is finding a higher gear in South Florida after a sluggish start to 2025.

Djokovic, gunning for his seventh Miami Open title, dispatched American Sebastian Korda 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) in 1 hour, 24 minutes in a quarterfinal match that was postponed from Wednesday.

Djokovic advanced to today’s semifinals and will face Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov. Djokovic is 12-1 against Dimitrov, 33, who reached the tournament final in 2024.

In the first women’s semifinal, No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka routed sixth-seeded Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-2 in 71 minutes to advance to her first Miami Open final.

SKIING

Mikaela Shiffrin smoothly navigated a bumpy course to easily win the women’s slalom at the World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The first-run leader, Shiffrin found another burst to finish in a combined time of 1 minute, 45.92 seconds and beat Lena Duerr of Germany by 1.13 seconds.

Shiffrin closed out the World Cup slalom season the same way she started it — with a win.

It was an injury-marred season for Shiffrin, who competed in only the slalom at finals. Shiffrin, 30, has missed four slalom races this season and that’s taken her out of retaining her title in the discipline. She still finished fourth in the slalom standings.

Croatian ski racer Zrinka Ljutic was 10th in Thursday’s race and captured the season-long slalom title race over Katharina Liensberger of Austria.

Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway clinched the season-long men’s slalom title by taking fourth in a race won by teammate Timon Haugan.

The United States retained the aerials team title at the world freestyle and snowboard championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The team of Kaila Khun, Quinn Dehlinger and Christopher Lillis scored 344.63 points, finished 32 points better than second-place Ukraine.

MOTORSPORTS

Red Bull dropped Liam Lawson as the teammate of Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen after just two rounds of the season and replaced him with Yuki Tsunoda.

COLLEGE SWIMMING

Rex Maurer won the first race of Day 2 at the NCAA men’s swimming and diving championships and his Texas teammate Hubert Kos took the second event as the Longhorns ended in first place with 190 points in Federal Way, Wash.

Maurer took the 500-yard freestyle in 4:05.35 ahead of teammate Luke Hobson to clinch a 1-2 finish for Texas, which made a big jump atop the team standings.

COLLEGE BASEBALL

Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall will retire from coaching after this season, the school announced, setting an end date to Hall’s 32-season run with the Yellow Jackets. Hall has 1,432 wins in 38 seasons to rank 10th in Division I history.