Emotional two-time champion says he doesn’t know if he will be back and ‘motivation is obviously a big thing’
An emotional Andy Murray hinted that he may have played his last Wimbledon match after his hopes of reaching the third round were dashed on Friday.
The two-time champion spoke of his disappointment after he was defeated by Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, the fifth seed, in five sets as the temperature soared to 29C.
Continue reading...The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has offered some advice to his UK counterpart after Rishi Sunak weighed into the controversy over Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Lord’s on Sunday.
Mr Albanese said on Tuesday he understood Sunak’s disappointment.
Continue reading...Mohammed bin Salman said to look to repair his reputation after 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul
The proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the American PGA Tour marks the latest maneuver by Riyadh in its campaign to repair its reputation and head off the sort of blacklisting that occurred after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent advocate for democracy in the Middle East told the Guardian.
“This is a merger in name only. This is really about the Saudi government throwing a premium at PGA Tour that they obviously found too overwhelmingly tempting to resist,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn).
Continue reading...Invitation raises possibility Yasir al-Rumayyan could be questioned under oath about execution of Jamal Khashoggi
The powerful governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund has been invited to testify before a Senate committee in the wake of a proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the PGA, raising the possibility the executive could be questioned under oath about issues ranging from the future of golf to the execution of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was invited to testify on 11 July by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, whose chairman, the Democratic senator Dick Blumenthal, is one of the toughest critics of Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill.
This article was amended on 21 June 2023 to clarify that Yasir al-Rumayyan is the governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund, rather than the chairman.
Continue reading...Sporting teams, friends and family used weekend to mourn the victims as fundraising effort tops $600,000
Nine passengers remain in hospital almost a week after the horror bus crash in the Hunter Valley as the fundraising effort to support victims and their families tops $600,000.
Sporting teams, friends and family used the weekend to mourn and pay tribute to the victims up and down eastern Australia.
Continue reading...Charges follow months of complaints against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh by country’s top wrestlers
Police in India have filed charges of sexual harassment and criminal intimidation against the chief of the country’s wrestling federation, a member of parliament with Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), following complaints by female wrestlers.
The public prosecutor Atul Srivastav read out the charges against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh at a court hearing in Delhi. If convicted he faces up to three years in jail.
Continue reading...Furious Oakland Athletics fans came en masse with a single message to owner John Fisher. “Sell the team!” they chanted thousands of times during the A’s 2-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Friends Brian Guido and Scott Finney of Sacramento left work early on Tuesday because they did not want to miss the festivities a couple of hours away in Oakland.
Continue reading...The rider of a motorbike has died following a crash with a competitor in an Ironman European championship race on Sunday, police in the host city of Hamburg said.
Police said there was a head-on crash when a race support motorbike carrying a rider and a passenger collided with a triathlete who was cycling in the opposite direction.
Continue reading...A man has been arrested at Wembley after a picture emerged of a football fan wearing a jersey with what appeared to be a reference to the Hillsborough disaster printed on the back.
The Metropolitan Police Events Twitter account retweeted a picture of a man wearing a Manchester United shirt that had the number 97 on the back and the words “Not Enough”.
Continue reading...Soccer for Life league in Tokyo has about 40 players, enough for three teams, playing 30-minute matches
There are mops of silver hair, Bobby Charlton combovers and a fair number of creaking knees. But the Red Star and Blue Hawaii football teams can be forgiven for the hesitant start to their match: every man on the pitch is older than 80. Within minutes, though, they are running freely – and moaning at the referee – as they roll back the years with every pass and tackle.
With a combined age in four figures, the 22 men are defying the passage of time in the Tokyo Soccer for Life league for the over-80s, a sporting expression of Japan’s status as a “super-ageing” society where the average male life expectancy is 85.
Continue reading...Novak Djokovic has insisted that he would not hesitate to opine on Kosovo and the clashes between Kosovo authorities and ethnic Serbs again, even as the backlash to his comments continues to grow.
“I don’t mind saying that. I mean, I would say it again,” Djokovic said. “But I don’t need to because you have my quotes if you want to reflect on that. Of course I’m aware that a lot of people would disagree, but it is what it is. It’s something that I stand for.”
Continue reading...Farhad Moshiri reportedly a ‘person of interest’ at special unit over links to sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usman
The Treasury’s sanctions police have been reviewing the finances of the Everton Football Club owner, Farhad Moshiri, the Guardian understands.
Moshiri appears to have become a person of interest to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) because of his links to Alisher Usmanov, the Russian-Uzbek billionaire who was sanctioned by the UK, the EU and the US after last year’s invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Sixteen months since Elina Svitolina last competed in a grand slam tournament, the Australian Open, life has changed significantly. She is now a mother, having taken maternity leave from the tour before giving birth to her first child, Skaï, with her husband, Gaël Monfils. Her country, Ukraine, has been invaded by Russia. She spent much of her time away from the sport, including during her pregnancy, advocating for her country’s cause.
On the court, however, not too much has changed. Svitolina returned to the French Open with a spectacular performance, dismantling the 26th seed, Martina Trevisan, a semi-finalist last year, 6-2, 6-2 to reach the second round. Trevisan is Svitolina’s first top‑30 win of her comeback.
Continue reading...Latvians woke up to go to work Monday morning, only to find they didn’t have to. Their parliament had met at midnight to declare a holiday after the national ice hockey team chalked up its best result at the world championship.
Latvia, where hockey is hugely popular, co-hosted the men’s championship with Finland, and the country’s 4-3 overtime victory over the United States for the bronze medal on Sunday was greeted with jubilation.
Continue reading...Workers at World Cup 2022 venues fired as tournament ended and allegedly jailed or deported after trying to claim unpaid wages
Three World Cup security guards who were detained while trying to resolve a dispute over unpaid wages are still being held in Qatar four months after their arrest.
Shakir Ullah and Zafar Iqbal from Pakistan, and an Indian national, have allegedly been sentenced to six months in prison and fined 10,000 riyals (£2,220) each.
Continue reading...Three detained after racist slurs directed at Real Madrid forward, with four more held over mannequin hanging from bridge
Spanish police have arrested three people in connection with the racist abuse suffered by Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinícius Júnior during a match with Valencia on Sunday, and detained a further four suspects over an effigy of the player that was hung from a bridge in Madrid four months ago.
In a brief statement on Tuesday morning, the Policía Nacional said three young men had been arrested in Valencia over the “racist behaviour” that took place during the match at the city’s Mestalla stadium.
Continue reading...Judicial sources say incident during Real Madrid’s match with Valencia is being treated as possible hate crime
Spanish prosecutors have opened an investigation over racist chants hurled at Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinícius Júnior during a weekend match, as the head of Spain’s football federation admitted the country had a “problem” with racism.
The prosecutor’s office in the eastern city of Valencia, where the game took place, was investigating the incident as a possible “hate crime”, judicial sources said, after Luis Rubiales of the Royal Spanish Football Federation called for zero tolerance.
Continue reading...At least 12 people have died with more than 100 injured in a crowd crush at a football stadium in El Salvador on Saturday, the Central American country’s government has confirmed.
Alianza FC and Club Deportivo Fas were playing the second leg of their playoff quarter-final game at the Estadio Cuscatlán in San Salvador, the country’s capital, when play was suspended after 16 minutes.
Continue reading...The chief executive of Football Australia has told the Observer that he is “pretty confident and optimistic” players will be allowed to wear rainbow armbands at the Women’s World Cup, after holding talks with Fifa. In a highly significant development, James Johnson said there had been “meaningful dialogue” between the hosts and football’s governing body and that it was likely to lead to players having greater ability to express themselves.
In an exclusive interview, Johnson also revealed that discussions had taken place over permitting Indigenous First Nation flags to be flown inside stadiums at July and August’s competition in Australia and New Zealand, saying it was an important issue for his country and its team.
Continue reading...Hayne was found guilty of assaulting a woman in her suburban Newcastle home on NRL grand final night 2018
Disgraced former NRL star Jarryd Hayne has been jailed for at least three years after sexually assaulting a woman in her home.
The 35-year-old was found guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent on 4 April and taken into custody 10 days later when his bail was revoked.
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