Ricky Stenhouse Jr. snapped a 65-race losing streak by winning in overtime at Talladega Superspeedway after a late crash collected more than half the field, including eight of the 12 championship contenders.

Stenhouse is not in the playoffs and his victory Sunday marked the second consecutive week a driver not competing for the Cup Series title has won.

The victory was the first for Stenhouse and his JTG Daugherty Racing team since he won the season-opening Daytona 500 to start 2023.

“It felt really good. This team has put a lot of hard work in, obviously we haven’t won since the 500 in ’23. It’s been an up-and-down season,” Stenhouse said. “It was a lot of hard work this season just trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew that this track is one of ours to come get.”

Stenhouse’s first career victory came at Talladega in 2017 and his four career Cup Series victories have come at either the Alabama superspeedway or Daytona International Speedway.

Stenhouse won in a three-wide finish between Brad Keselowski and William Byron, who with his third-place finish became the only driver locked into the third round of the playoffs.

Four drivers will be eliminated from the playoffs next Sunday on the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte. Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric and Chase Briscoe are all below the cutline.

Cindric was the leader with five laps remaining in regulation when Logano, two rows back, gave Keselowski a hard shove directly into Cindric. It caused Cindric to spin and 27 of the 40 cars in the field suffered some sort of damage in the melee.

Even Stenhouse had a chunk of sheet metal missing from the driver side door area when he drove his car into victory lane.

The race was red-flagged for nearly nine minutes of cleanup, and 22 cars remained on the lead lap for the two-lap overtime sprint to the finish. Many of those 22 cars were damaged.

Only four drivers still active in the playoffs finished inside the top 10.

The playoff field will be cut from 12 drivers to eight when four are eliminated next Sunday at The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. AJ Allmendinger won the race a year ago.

Tennis

Gauff wins EIGHth title >> Coco Gauff won her second title this season with a lopsided 6-1, 6-3 victory over Karolina Muchova in the final of the China Open.

Aged 20, the sixth-ranked U.S. player became the youngest China Open champion in 14 years. She is also the second American champion in Beijing, following Serena Williams’ title runs in 2004 and 2013.

“Honestly, it means a lot when I saw that the last American woman to win this was Serena Williams,” Gauff said. “Anytime my name is mentioned in whatever sentence hers is, it’s a huge honor.”

It was Gauff’s eighth career title. She improved her record in tour finals to 8-1 and has now a 7-0 record in hard-court finals, a feat never achieved before in the Open Era.

“That’s pretty cool,” Gauff said. “I hope somebody else breaks it. I think records are meant to be broken, honestly.”

Gauff, who defended her Auckland title earlier this season, wasted no time and took the opening set in just 31 minutes. She dropped just five points on her first serve, hit 24 winners and broke Muchova five times.

Gauff’s win in Beijing improved her chances of qualifying for the WTA Finals featuring the eight top players for the third consecutive year. With her title, she will overtake Jessica Pegula to take the No. 5 spot ahead of the final WTA 1000 tournament of the season, the Wuhan Open starting Monday.

Soccer

USMNT shakes up roster >> Tim Weah, Folarin Balogun and Johnny Cardoso will miss Mauricio Pochettino’s first games as U.S. national team coach because of injuries.

Brandon Vazquez, Alex Zendejas and Tanner Tessmann were added to the roster on Sunday.

Weah has not played for Juventus since Sept. 21 because of an ankle injury.

Balogun scored the go-ahead goal in the 22nd minute of Monaco’s 2-1 win at Rennes in Ligue 1 on Saturday and left in the 64rd minute with what appeared to be a shoulder injury.

Cardoso left Real Betis’ Europa Conference League game against Legia Warsaw on Thursday in the 66th minute.

The U.S. plays exhibitions against Panama on Saturday at Austin, Texas, and Mexico three days later at Guadalajara.

Expansion club fires coach >> Coach Josh Wolff was fired by Austin after the team failed to reach Major League Soccer’s playoffs for the second consecutive year.

Wolff, a former striker and assistant coach for the U.S. men’s national team, was hired in 2019 shortly after the expansion club was announced by MLS, nearly two years before it began play.

Despite its run to the Western Conference Finals in 2022, Austin has failed to make the playoffs three of Wolff’s four years.

Wolff was the sixth MLS coach dismissed this season, including San Jose’s Luchi Gonzalez on June 24.