Their first love was tennis. Now Gainer and Ruffels are battling to be major winners in women’s golf

EVIAN-LES-BAINS France AP 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 -ranked Englishwoman and Ruffels a st-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 -under to move to under for the week and was soon joined in the lead by Ruffels who shot They ve got plenty of high-quality company on the leaderboard however No -ranked Minjee Lee the new winner of the Women s PGA Championship shot and was a stroke off the co-leaders in her bid to become the first woman since Inbee Park in to capture back-to-back major titles No -ranked Jeeno Thitikul who has yet to win a major was tied on under with Lee along with second-round leader Somi Lee and Grace Kim 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 mentioned the -year-old Gainer who tried her hand at golf for the first time at the age of and expeditiously 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 athlete 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 Gabriela Ruffels was so good as the No junior in Australia that she won numerous ITF junior events in Europe but also turned to golf around the age of and was the U S Women s Amateur champion in 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 -year-old Ruffels declared It was great to relax and not touch the clubs for a minimal days and get over jet lag Seems to have worked this week AP golf https apnews com hub golf Source