EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Golf wasn’t the first love of Cara Gainer or Gabriela Ruffels, who grew up wanting to be professional tennis players and came close to making it.
Now they’re in sight of becoming an unlikely major winner in their adopted sport.
Gainer, a No. 129-ranked Englishwoman, and Ruffels, a 71st-ranked Australian, will be in the final group at the Evian Championship on Sunday after powering through the field in the third round of the fourth major of the year in women’s golf.
On a glorious Saturday at Evian Resort Golf Club, Gainer shot 7-under 64 to move to 11 under for the week and was soon joined in the lead by Ruffels, who shot 66.
They’ve got plenty of high-quality company on the leaderboard, however.
No. 6-ranked Minjee Lee, the recent winner of the Women’s PGA Championship, shot 66 and was a stroke off the co-leaders in her bid to become the first woman since Inbee Park in 2013 to capture back-to-back major titles.
No. 2-ranked Jeeno Thitikul (67), who has yet to win a major, was tied on 10 under with Lee, along with second-round leader Somi Lee (71) and Grace Kim (70).
They’ll all be applying pressure on Gainer and Ruffels, who have kept a keen eye on the Wimbledon tennis championships taking place this week and finished their third rounds just before the start of the women’s singles final between Amanda Anisimova and Iga Swiatek.
They’ll no doubt be watching it.
“Tennis was, I guess, my first love,” said the 29-year-old Gainer, who tried her hand at golf for the first time at the age of 14 and quickly became a scratch handicapper. “I do still really enjoy it. I don’t really play anymore but I love to watch it. Obviously Wimbledon is on this week so that’s my evening.”
Like Gainer, Ruffels had a tennis coach – and former player – for a father. Ray Ruffels was a three-time Australian Open singles semifinalist and he reached the Wimbledon and U.S. Open mixed doubles finals with Billie Jean King in 1978.
Gabriela Ruffels was so good – as the No. 1 junior in Australia – that she won many ITF junior events in Europe, but also turned to golf around the age of 14 and was the U.S. Women’s Amateur champion in 2019.
Before coming to the French Alps, she stopped off at Wimbledon with her boyfriend as a guest of retired Australian doubles great Todd Woodbridge.
“It was such a cool experience,” the 25-year-old Ruffels said. “It was great to relax and not touch the clubs for a few days and get over jet lag. Seems to have worked this week.”
