Felix rolls into Munich quarters

Montreal's Felix AugerAliassime advanced to the quarterfinals of the Bavarian International Tennis Championships with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Japan's Taro Daniel on Thursday.

Auger-Aliassime, the fifth seed in Munich, won 80 per cent of first serve points, including nine aces, and converted all four of his break point chances.

The match took a little more than 84 minutes to complete, a breeze compared to Auger-Aliassime's three-hour, 25-minute slugfest win over Germany's Maximillian Marterer in Tuesday's first round.

Auger-Aliassime will next face fourth seed Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany in the quarterfinals of the ATP 250 clay court tournament. Struff advanced with a 7-6 (0), 6-4 win over Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands.

The Canadian is 2-1 against Struff over his career, including wins in their last two meetings.

It's the first time AugerAliassime has won two matches at a tournament since defeating Harold Mayot on Feb. 2 in the quarterfinals at Montpelier, France.

He has yet to win three times at an event this year.

While Deshaun Watson's rehab from

right shoulder surgery is on a conservative track, the Cleveland Browns are expecting the quarterback to be ready for their season opener.

“We feel really good about it,” general manager Andrew Berry said Thursday at his annual pre-draft news conference. “I'm not going to make any predictions, just because you just never know. But that's certainly our expectation.”

Watson suffered a fracture to the glenoid bone in his throwing shoulder and had his second season with Cleveland end after just six starts.

The 28-year-old Watson has played in 12 games since the Browns acquired him in a 2022 trade from Houston and signed him to a fully guaranteed US$230-million contract.

Juventus has been ordered to

pay Cristiano Ronaldo more than US$10 million by an arbitration board following a salary dispute.

The dispute revolved around a move by Juventus players to defer part of their salaries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The €9.8 million ($14.4 million) that Juventus was ordered to pay Ronaldo is half the amount that the five-time Ballon d'Or winner had been seeking from the Turin club in back wages.

Juventus said in a statement that “with the support of its legal counsel” it's “reviewing the decision made by the arbitration board, reserving all assessments and initiatives to preserve its rights.”

Ronaldo played for Juventus from 2018 to 2021, helping the club to two Serie A titles.

Former Juventus president Andrea Agnelli and the club's entire board resigned in 2023 amid an investigation into false accounting.