TENNIS
Taiwan’s Wu exits
Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien on Friday was defeated in the women’s doubles at the National Bank Open in Toronto. Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China lost 4-6, 7-6 (10/8), 10-1 to US pair Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin in the quarter-finals at Sobeys Stadium in the US$3,211,715 hardcourt tournament. In the women’s singles, Coco Gauff lost 6-4, 6-1 to 14th seed Diana Shnaider. Preparing for her US Open title defense, Gauff was broken trailing 5-4 in the first set. The 20-year-old American double-faulted down 2-1 in the second and Shnaider held serve to go up 4-1. “I just wasn’t finding my timing well,” Gauff said. Shnaider, in the quarter-finals faces Liudmila Samsonova. The others to reach the last eight were: Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Peyton Stearns, Taylor Townsend, Emma Navarro and Amanda Anisimova.
CRICKET
Maharaj dismisses three
Keshav Maharaj’s discipline and persistence on Friday earned him three important wickets as the West Indies were limited to 145-4 in reply to South Africa’s first innings total of 357 at the end of the third day of the rain-affected first Test at Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Maharaj returned figures of 3-45 from 28 overs. Fellow left-arm orthodox spinner Jomel Warrican (4-69) lead the home side’s effort in eventually dismissing the visitors on the third morning. “It’s really about keeping it simple and being consistent and repetitive in conditions like this... and I like repetitions,” Maharaj said at the end of play. “There’s not much to be had from the wicket, so I am trying to use different variations, different paces and trajectories to make it uncomfortable to score.”
CYCLING
Alaphilippe to leave team
Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe has told Soudal-Quick Step he will leave them at the end of the season, team boss Patrick Lefevere said yesterday. Alaphilippe is a two-time world champion. “Julian called me this week to tell me he was leaving.” Lefevere told Belgian daily Het Nieuwsblad. “He’d been thinking about it at night for weeks and it had been making him sick, but he told be he’s leaving the team.” With the arrival at the Belgian team of top local rider Remco Evenepoel, Alaphilippe would no longer be the team’s chief priority.
CROSSFIT
Serbian Lazar Dukic dies
Serbian athlete Lazar Dukic died on Thursday while competing in a CrossFit swimming competition in Texas, the fitness organization said on social media. He was 28. “We are devastated by the passing of Lazar Dukic. Our hearts are with Lazar’s entire family, friends, and fellow athletes,” CrossFit wrote on X. Dukic went underwater and did not resurface during a swimming event at the CrossFit Games, an annual multiday fitness challenge with athletes from around the world, local media reported. CrossFit said it was “fully cooperating with authorities and doing everything we can to support the family at this time.” The event was held at Marine Creek Lake in Fort Worth, media reported. Dukic was ranked third in Serbia and 88th worldwide, according to his profile on CrossFit’s Web site. Events were suspended for the remainder of Thursday, CrossFit wrote on X.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
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