​CHICAGO – No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd bounced on her toes as she held her follow through and watched her shot fall from the left corner before running to the next rack. It wasn’t out of anticipation or excitement. It was a programmed movement.  With her fifth made bucket in a row, the Dallas Wings guard was off to a perfect start in the final round of the 2026 WNBA 3-point contest on Friday, July 24, at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.  Fudd went on to finish with 30 points in the closing round for the highest-scoring round by a rookie in WNBA history, beating Portland Fire forward Bridget Carleton to become the first rookie to win the league’s 3-point contest.  The 23-year-old UConn alum’s new place in the league’s history books comes as the latest chapter in a story that features a brutal injury history and an upbringing with parents who had the foresight to name her in honor of Jennifer Azzi, a collegiate basketball trailblazer who set elite standards as a sharp-shooter and floor general.  “That’s crazy. To be the first is definitely an honor,” Fudd told reporters when informed of her historic feat. “Coming back from injuries, there was a lot of chair shooting, a lot of stationary shots. And so you get really good at shooting off a rack and being stationary and robotic and having your shot down to a tee.”  Dating back to her time at St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C., Fudd has kept shooting through a laundry list of lower leg problems. She tore her right ACL and MCL during a USA Basketball 3-on-3 tournament in 2019. Her freshman year as a Huskie saw her miss 11 games due to a foot injury. She faced multiple knee issues her sophomore year including a right knee injury that forced her to miss 22 games. As a junior in the 2023-24 season, she tore the ACL and medial meniscus in her right knee during a November practice and missed the remainder of the season. And those are just the headlines.  That’s why she was able to joke on Friday that it “feels a lot lighter” winning without a boot. In 2021, she won Intersport’s High School All-Star Team shootout competition and claimed the runner-up title in the girls’ 3-point shooting contest, all while wearing a clunky medical boot to protect a foot injury she had at the time.  Not the first All-Star shooting title for @azzi_35 in her career. In 2021, she won Intersport’s High School All-Star Team Shootout competition and finished runner-up in the girls’ 3-point contest… while rocking a walking boot! https://t.co/n6FuVLnP5Opic.twitter.com/hr7hak5Cca— Intersport Basketball (@IntersportHoops) July 25, 2026Experiences like that certainly help when you’re too busy playing four games in the last six days before the All-Star break to dedicate prep time to an All-Star contest.  In her own assessment, Fudd’s six missed shots in the final round were “too many.” The league’s single-round record is held by New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 37 out of