Djokovic gets off to strong start in his opening match of Italian Open
Still attempting to get his nearly unbeatable form back following his time away from the tour, Novak Djokovic took another step in the right direction with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Aslan Karatsev in his opening match at the Italian Open on Tuesday.
The top-ranked Djokovic, who is bidding for a sixth Rome title, showed off some vintage scrambling abilities late in the first set when he ran down one shot near the net post then sprinted back across the net to dig out a low backhand volley winner.
Also on the red clay courts of the Foro Italico, big-serving John Isner eliminated Miami Open semifinalist Francisco Cerundolo 6-4, 6-3 and will next face 10-time Rome champion Rafael Nadal.
Diego Schwartzman, a finalist in Rome two years ago, saved two match points before eliminating Miomir Kecmanovic 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (3).
Grigor Dimitrov beat American qualifier Brandon Nakashima 6-3, 6-4 and will next face fourth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Sebastian Baez, who recently won a clay-court title in Estoril, Portugal, extended his winning streak to eight matches with a 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-2 victory over fellow qualifier Tallon Griekspoor. Baez next plays Alexander Zverev.
In the women’s tournament, there was a firstround matchup later between two U.S. Open winners — reigning champion Emma Raducanu and Bianca Andreescu, who raised the trophy in 2019.
Also, Madrid Open runner-up Jessica Pegula rallied past Liudmila Samsonova 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
American qualifiers Madison Brengle and Lauren Davis both advanced in straight sets. Brengle beat fellow qualifier Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 6-3 and Davis defeated 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-3.
Amanda Anisimova, another American and a French Open semifinalist in 2019, held off Czech qualifier Tereza Martincova 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 and will next play Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic.
Veteran French players Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon have been handed wild cards to play
Novak Djokovic easily defeated Aslan Karatsev at the Italian Open tennis tournament, in Rome on Tuesday.
in the main draw at the French Open, organizers said Tuesday.
College leader: Black athletes intimidated
The president of a historically Black college accused sheriff’s deputies in Georgia of intimidating and humiliating the school women’s lacrosse team when deputies pulled over the athletes’ bus and searched it for drugs.
Delaware State University president Tony Allen said he’s “incensed” by the April 20 traffic stop along Interstate 95 south of Savannah as the team returned from a game in Florida. In a letter to students and faculty, Allen said nothing illegal was found and campus officials were “exploring options for recourse — legal and otherwise.”
“We do not intend to let this or any other incident like it pass idly by,” Allen said in the letter posted Monday on the university’s social media pages.
Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman, who is Black, said Tuesday his office is conducting a formal review of the traffic stop. He said deputies had stopped other commercial vehicles the same morning along I-95 and found drugs on a different bus. The team’s chartered bus was stopped because it was traveling in the left lane, which is a violation of Georgia law, he said. The sheriff said deputies decided to search the team’s bus when a drugsniffing dog “alerted.”
Kämna wins stage at Giro d’Italia
German cyclist Lennard Kämna won the fourth
stage of the Giro d’Italia on the slopes of Mount Etna while Juan Pedro López moved into the overall lead on Tuesday as the Italian grand tour returned to home soil.
Both of them had been part of an early breakaway, as was Rein Taaramäe, who finished third at the end of the 172-kilometer (107-mile) route from Avola that culminated on the steep climb up the volcano, as the riders faced their first serious test of this year’s race.
Brady will be sports analyst after retiring
Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady will join Fox Sports as its lead football analyst once his playing career ends, the network said Tuesday.
When that actually happens is unclear, because Brady recently changed his mind about retiring and said he plans to continue playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for his 23rd NFL season.
Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch made the announcement during a corporate investor call on Tuesday.
• The Miami Dolphins signed running back Sony Michel to a one-year contract on Tuesday, bringing a South Florida native back to his home area.
Michel has been part of two Super Bowl-winning teams in his four NFL seasons, after helping New England win a title in the 2018 season and the Los Angeles Rams win the crown last season.
• Pittsburgh Steelers AllPro defensive tackle Cameron Heyward has been selected as the 2022 Good Guy Award winner by the Professional Football Writers
of America.
Heyward, the 18th Good Guy Award winner, is the second member of the Steelers franchise to get the award, joining Jerome Bettis, who won the inaugural honor in 2005. The award is given to an NFL player for his qualities and professional style in helping pro football writers do their jobs.
FIFA, EA end deal to make video games
Electronic Arts will stop making its hugely successful FIFA video game in its current name, marking a split in one of soccer’s most successful and lucrative partnerships after the sides failed to strike a new licensing deal.
Instead, the California company said Tuesday that EA Sports FC will be introduced from 2023 after it creates the final game in partnership with FIFA later this year.
Licensing rights for the game earn FIFA about $150 million annually — the single biggest commercial earner in its expected $7 billion total revenue from 2019-2022 — though FIFA struck a defiant tone in a statement published hours after the announcement of losing that income.
FIFA promised a “number of new non-simulation games (that) are already under production” and will launch ahead of the 2022 World Cup that kicks off in Qatar in November.
• A scaled-back first phase to the expanded Champions League in 2024 was approved by UEFA on Tuesday to quell a backlash around Europe.
The reformatted group stage has been reduced from 10 rounds to eight, and backup places for teams based on historical performance have been removed.
The stage will still grow from 32 to 36 teams based around a single standings rather than eight groups.
Weeks of talks involving domestic leagues and clubs produced the revised format that will see two additional places in the expanded format awarded to the two countries with the highest UEFA ranking based on their teams’ results in European competitions the previous season.