Wimbledon: Sinner serving for victory over Djokovic and place in final
LIVE: Jannik Sinner takes a dominant two-set lead over Novak Djokovic
Djokovic is seven-time Wimbledon winner and 24-time Grand Slam champion
World number one Sinner has won three majors, all on hard courts
Winner will face two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday
Alcaraz beat Taylor Fritz in four sets to extend winning streak to 24 matches
Choose from all 18 courts on BBC iPlayer
Wimbledon: Sinner serving for victory over Djokovic and place in final
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Venus Williams receives wild card entry for US Open mixed doubles at 45 years old
Venus Williams is 45 years old and about to play in a Grand Slam again. The longtime tennis star received a wild-card entry into the mixed doubles field of the US Open on Tuesday, the tournament announced, setting her up to play alongside partner Reilly Opelka at Flushing Meadows. She will be joined by several other stars in the field, including Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek. When she takes the court, it will be Williams' first appearance at a Grand Slam in any field since the same tournament in 2023, where she entered the singles draw via another wild card and was eliminated in the first round by qualifier Greet Minnen. Since then, Williams has been mostly inactive while going through health issues, including a surgery to remove uterine fibroids. She made her return last week at the D.C. Open, where she won both a singles and doubles match for the first time in 2016. Williams surprised former NCAA champion Peyton Stearns, then ranked 35th in the world, in the first round of the singles draw before losing to fifth seed Magdalena Fręch in the second round. Opelka, Williams' doubles partner, is currently 74th on the ATP Tour's men's singles rankings. He is 27 years old and notably tied for the tour's tallest-ever player at 6-foot-11, which gives him one of the nastiest serves in tennis. Williams is a 23-time Grand Slam champion, with seven singles titles, 14 doubles titles and two mixed doubles titles. She played her first US Open in 1997, when she made the singles finals at 17 years old. She has nothing to prove at this stage, but raised some eyebrows last week when asked why she decided to return to tennis in her mid-40s. Venus Williams is doing this for the health insurance (sort of) At the end of her first-round post-match interview, Williams provided a small peak behind the curtain of how professional athletes go about healthcare, revealing that she was actually on COBRA, which allows employees to stay on their employer's health insurance after losing benefits. Here's what she said: 'I had to come back for the insurance, because they informed me earlier this year I'm on COBRA. So that's like, I got to get my benefits on ... You guys know what it's like. Let me tell you, I am always at the doctor, so I need this insurance.' To be clear, Williams was joking there. She said it all that with a smile and called it a "fun and funny moment" after her second match. However, many people and outlets took the statement quite seriously, with some of them using it as a jumping-off point to discuss broader healthcare issues. It is true that health insurance coverage is an issue for many retiring athletes. Active professional athletes get some of the best health insurance in the world for obvious reasons, and having to figure out coverage after retirement is a challenge for many people who just exited the most lucrative stage of their lives. While clarifying the tongue-in-cheek moment following the second match, Williams said in the same breath that it was a "serious issue" and one "that people are dealing with." With $42.7 million in career earnings from her WTA career and likely much more than that from her endorsements, Williams isn't one of those people (barring astonishing financial mismanagement). Given the choice, she will take the WTA's insurance because it gives her one less thing to worry about, but it's a stretch to say she is still playing because she needs the insurance.
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England and India fight fatigue as gripping Test series goes to the wire
England and India head to the Oval for the decisive fifth and final Test of a hard-fought campaign on Thursday, with both teams battling mental and physical fatigue. A congested schedule of five Tests in less than seven weeks has proved gruelling, especially for the fast bowlers from both teams, with every match going the distance so far. Remarkably, India can still end the series all square at 2-2 after salvaging an unlikely draw in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, keeping the hosts on the field for 143 overs in their second innings. Tensions spiked at the end of the game when India allowed Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar to complete their centuries after England captain Ben Stokes offered to shake hands on a draw, adding spice to the Oval Test. AFP Sport looks at the key talking points ahead of the fifth Test in London. India weigh up Bumrah decision Jasprit Bumrah's back injury earlier this year prompted India to announce the fast bowler would only feature in three games during the current series. The world's top-ranked Test bowler made his third appearance on a docile pitch in Manchester and has little time to recover after bowling a gruelling 33 overs, during which he took two wickets. But India coach Gautam Gambhir says all of his squad's quicks are fit for the finale including Akash Deep, who took 10 wickets in Bumrah's absence during India's 336-run win in the second Test at Edgbaston before suffering a groin injury in the next match at Lord's. England must decide whether to risk express paceman Jofra Archer, who has bowled nearly 90 overs in two Tests after more than four years of injury-enforced exile. The home team took just four wickets on a flat Old Trafford pitch during India's battling second innings, with seamer Brydon Carse also worked hard. Jamie Overton has been added to an England squad that already has extra pace options in Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson. England may need to rein in Stokes Can England stop skipper Ben Stokes from bowling himself into the ground at the Oval? The Old Trafford match was a personal triumph for the all-rounder, who became just the fourth England cricketer to score a hundred and take five wickets in the same Test. Stokes has now sent down 140 overs -- the most he has bowled in any series -- and is the leading wicket-taker on either side with 17 scalps. Yet in Manchester he was in evident pain, often clutching his thigh as well as nursing a bicep injury. With the skipper central to England's hopes of regaining the Ashes on their upcoming tour of Australia, concerns remain over his workload. "Bowling, being in the field is tough work, so I am pretty sore," said Stokes after the fourth Test. "We are going in 2-1 up but we want to put that last big performance in." Remarkable Gill eyes another record Captaincy appears to be doing wonders for the career of previously inconsistent India batsman Shubman Gill. The elegant 25-year-old scored his fourth century of an extraordinary debut series as skipper at Old Trafford. He came in with the tourists in dire straits at 0-2 in their second innings, responding with a marathon 103 in 238 balls that laid the foundations for a great escape. Gill has set a new record for the most runs scored by an India batsman in a series against England of 722, surpassing team-mate Yashasvi Jaiswal's tally of 712 in 2023/24. At the Oval he could eclipse Sunil Gavaskar's all-time India series record of 774 runs, set in a four-match campaign against the West Indies in 1971. One downside for Gill is that he will be without vice-captain and prolific runscorer Rishabh Pant, who sustained a foot fracture in Manchester. jdg/jw/mw
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'I felt like the old Genie': Bouchard extends career with first-round win at NBO
MONTREAL — Eugenie Bouchard's retirement will have to wait. The former world No. 5 — and first Canadian woman to contest a Grand Slam final in the open era — upset Colombia's Emiliana Arango 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 in the first round Monday night at the National Bank Open, extending her tennis career for at least one match. 'I told my family that if I won the tournament, I would come out of retirement,' she said from centre court. 'I felt like the old Genie out there.' Bouchard, who also earned her 300th singles win, announced on July 16 that she would hang up her racket at the end of her hometown event. The 31-year-old from Westmount, Que., rose to prominence with a sensational season in 2014. At only 20, she reached the Wimbledon final, played in the Australian Open and French Open semifinals and won her only WTA title. Bouchard never returned to that level in a short-lived run among the best in tennis, but for one night at least, she resembled her old self — striking the ball with flair and painting the lines with forehand winners. "I woke up this morning just telling myself, look I can't control the result, I just want to have a good attitude, have good fight and try to feel good with my shots, feel good with my game,' she said. 'No matter what happens, I wanted to walk off the court having enjoyed that gritty battle. 'I enjoyed every second of it.' Now ranked 1,062nd, Bouchard has moved away from the pro tennis circuit in recent years, spending more time on the PPA Pickleball Tour, where she ranks 12th in singles. Knowing it could be her last dance, fans mostly filled IGA Stadium, welcoming Bouchard with loud applause when she stepped on the court and cheering her on — with mixed chants of 'Let's Go Genie!' and 'Allez Eugenie!' — with every point. Bouchard could feel the crowd's energy running through her. Sometimes a little too much. When Bouchard broke the 82nd-ranked Arango twice in the decisive third set — first with a forehand, then from the Colombian's missed volley — to build a 5-1 lead, she described the feeling as an 'out-of-body' experience. 'The crowd was so noisy that I didn't feel my body for 30 seconds,' she said. 'And I lost the game after that. It didn't help me at the time.' Arango broke back with Bouchard serving for the match to make it 5-2, but the Canadian went up 40-love in the ensuing game. Arango then sent her forehand wide on Bouchard's second match point. The local favourite held her hands above her head in disbelief, blew kisses to the crowd, and later told a shouting fan 'I love you, too!' "It was electric out there,' Bouchard said. 'I'm so proud of how I competed and stayed focused throughout the whole match and fought. It was a physical battle, a mental battle, and it just felt amazing to play in Montreal in front of everyone.' Bouchard will take on 17th seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in the second round Wednesday night. She came out with flashes of her attacking style, pushing Arango out of position with a dangerous backhand before hitting a forehand winner to go up 1-0 in the first set. After holding serve to go up 5-4, Bouchard earned double breakpoint and hit a forehand winner down the line to take the set. "I know that I have good tennis, but I didn't know if I could show it today,' she said. 'I put effort into practice recently and I really wanted to have a good performance. So I knew I could do that, but it depended on whether I could stay in the game mentally and not be in my emotions or think about all the things that were around this game and around this tournament. 'I'm proud I was able to do that. I still have my focus.' Bouchard's momentum didn't carry into the second set as Arango broke her three times to comfortably force a third. Then she got it back. Also on Monday, Canada's Kayla Cross, Ariana Arseneault and Carson Branstine dropped out of the NBO after the first round. Cross let a one-set lead slip away in a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 loss to Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia, and Arseneault of Richmond Hill, Ont., fell 6-4, 6-2 to Japan's Naomi Osaka. Branstine, who grew up in California but represents Canada through family ties in Toronto, pushed former world No. 3 Maria Sakkari to three sets, but ultimately dropped the two hour, 23-minute match 6-2, 3-6, 7-5. Toronto's Victoria Mboko, Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., and Vancouver's Rebecca Marino advanced to the second round with wins Sunday. Andreescu's status for the remainder of the tournament is unclear after she hurt her left ankle on match point against Czechia's Barbora Krejcikova. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2025. Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
