#australian-open

#australian-open

Serena Williams has resisted saying publicly that she has retired from tennis and the finality that would bring, but now she has another reason to stay away from competition in the near future.Amid the costume-themed glitz of the Met Gala on Monday night Williams announced, both on the red carpet and on social media, that she was pregnant with her second child.

Jessica Pegula, the professional tennis player, has revealed details for the first time about the health of her mother, Kim Pegula, a co-owner and president of the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres, describing how she went into cardiac arrest last year and is still struggling to recover.In an essay published in The Players' Tribune on Tuesday, Jessica Pegula said she was writing about it now because she wanted to be more open after Damar Hamlin, the Bills defensive back, went into cardiac arrest during a game on Jan. 2.

Last August, Diana Shnaider, a teenage tennis player from Russia, was traveling solo in Europe with a world-class forehand but no working bank card because of financial sanctions against her country.She had to pay for hotels, flights and food with cash.Last week, she led the North Carolina State women's tennis team, which is ranked ninth in Division I, to a victory over second-ranked Ohio State.

The IOC said "the only option that could be considered are [Russians competing as] individual, neutral athletes" at the 2024 Paris Olympics.Benoit Tessier, Reuters file photo The International Olympic Committee pushed back against the mayor of Paris on Wednesday, insisting there were no plans for "a Russian or Belarusian delegation at the 2024 Games while also acknowledging that some athletes from those countries could be welcomed.

MELBOURNE, Australia The tennis breakthroughs keep coming for Tommy Paul and his American friends.Taylor Fritz became the first of their peer group to win a Masters 1000 title last year at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.A few months later, Frances Tiafoe became the first of their group to reach a Grand Slam semifinal in singles, pushing eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz to five sets.

MELBOURNE, Australia Keep fighting, Serena Williams said to an 18-year-old Sania Mirza when they met at the net after a match at the Australian Open.That was in January 2005, and Mirza, strong-minded to begin with, took even more strength from the advice.A Muslim from Hyderabad, India, who started playing tennis on courts made of cow dung, Mirza became the most successful women's tennis player in India's history at an early age but kept pushing for more, experiencing success above all in doubles and in inspiring women from South Asia and beyond to think bigger.

Canada's Denis Shapovalov has fallen out of the Delray Beach Open, losing 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 to American Michael Mmoh in second-round action on Wednesday in Delray Beach, Fla.The Richmond Hill, Ont., native hit four aces and 30 winners but also committed four double faults and 30 unforced errors.Shapovalov broke on two of his 10 opportunities and won 75 per cent of his first-serve points.

Footage taken at the Australian Open appears to show Srdjan Djokovic, the father of the Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic, posing with fans who were carrying Russian flags and symbols.In the video, posted on a prominent pro-Putin YouTube account, Srdjan Djokovic is briefly seen alongside the fans, one of whom is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the pro-war Z emblem and carrying a flag featuring an image of President Vladimir V. Putin.

On Monday, the girlfriend of the American tennis player Frances Tiafoe posted a video from what she called a fashion show.In it, Mr. Tiafoe, ranked 17th in the world, tried on a kit sent to him by Nike, his sponsor, as he readied for the Australian Open.It's definitely a lot, but I'm here for it, his girlfriend, Ayan Broomfield, a tennis player from Canada, says as Mr. Tiafoe walks to a mirror to see the outfit: a sleeveless top and shorts covered in multicolored waves, like an oil slick rainbow or a lava lamp.

MELBOURNE, Australia There were 94,854 fans at the Australian Open on Saturday, setting a single-day attendance record.But perhaps even more surprising than the size of the audience was that four American men remained in contention for the men's singles title: Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul.

MELBOURNE, Australia After spending the past week receiving all the laurels of a hometown favorite, Nick Kyrgios suddenly withdrew from the Australian Open on Monday with a knee injury, a little more than 24 hours ahead of his scheduled first-round match.In an interview Friday, Kyrgios, the temperamental Australian star who was a finalist at Wimbledon last year, said he had been battling soreness in his left knee during the off-season, but he expected to be able to play in the year's first Grand Slam.

The year's first major tennis tournament suffered a major blow on Friday when Carlos Alcaraz, the precocious men's world No. 1 from Spain, announced that he was withdrawing from the Australian Open with a right leg injury.Alcaraz, a 19-year-old phenom with an acrobatic and all-court game, won his first Grand Slam singles title in September at the U.S. Open in often-spectacular fashion, prevailing in a series of compelling and frequently lengthy matches.

Creative agency We Are Social has appointed Ruaridh O'Donnell as its new editorial creative director, reporting to ECD, Ben Clare.O'Donnell has transferred to the Sydney office from the agency's London headquarters, after six years at the agency.Starting out as a junior writer, O'Donnell rose through the ranks to become an associate editorial director at We Are Social London, latterly leading a team of creatives in the We Are Social Sport division.

It's hard to think of a jukebox musical that has been touched by quite so many pop stars.Since & Juliet opened on the West End in 2019 and Broadway in 2022, Katy Perry, Adam Lambert, N Sync and the Backstreet Boys have all come to the show.Kelly Clarkson features on the US cast album, Jessie J on the UK one even Robyn and Harry Styles have come to early developments.

Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine reached her first final in four years after the top-seeded Bianca Andreescu retired with a shoulder injury during their semifinal match at the Thailand Open on Saturday.Tsurenko, in search of her fifth WTA title, was leading the 2019 U.S. Open champion 7-5, 4-0 when the Canadian stopped playing.

MELBOURNE, Australia Jessica Pegula does not land on many magazine covers.Her steady game does not produce a lot of highlight-reel moments.She is the world's third-ranked player but has floated largely under the radar during her steady rise to the top of tennis.At the Australian Open this year, that approach is looking more and more like a secret to success.

Morning Sports Update The 34-year-old hit 38 home runs in 2021.The Bruins face the Islanders in New York tonight at 7:30 p.m.
Tomorrow, the Celtics will play the Warriors at TD Garden.The game will tip off at 7:30 p.m.
Adam Duvall and the Red Sox: The Red Sox have agreed to sign outfielder Adam Duvall to a one-year contract, according to SportsGrid's Craig Mish and MassLive's Chris Cotillo.

MELBOURNE, Australia Shang Juncheng could have chosen his father's sport of soccer or his mother's sport of table tennis.His father, Shang Yi, was a leading Chinese midfielder, good enough to play for the national team.His mother, Wu Na, was a world champion in doubles.Instead, their son became a tennis player, leaving home in Beijing at age 11 to train at an academy in Florida.

Tennis Australia is expanding its NFT ball art offering for this year's Australian Open, saying it is in it for the long haul despite the uncertainty in the crypto market.The Open last year launched an AO Artball collection as the hype around all things crypto peaked, with 6,776 ball artworks sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are linked to 19cm x 19cm plots on the court at Melbourne Park.

The tennis player Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam winner, announced on Wednesday that she is pregnant.She posted a photograph of an ultrasound on Instagram, and added, One thing I'm looking forward to is for my kid to watch one of my matches and tell someone, that's my mom,' haha.She said in the post that she would be at the 2024 Australian Open.

Great Britain's Harriet Dart defeated Maddison Inglis in straight sets to seal the team's tie win over Australia at the United Cup.Wins on day one for Cameron Norrie and Katie Swan meant Britain were already 2-0 up  over their group opponents.Inglis was a late call-up for the match after Ajla Tomljanovic withdrew with a knee injury.

Great Britain face an away tie against unseeded Colombia in their Davis Cup 2023 qualifier in February.Britain were handed a wild card for this year's tournament but must travel to South America in their bid to qualify for next September's group stage.Colombia will choose the surface for their best-of-five-match qualifier, which starts a week after the Australian Open on either February 3-4 or 4-5.