AN EARLY EXIT FOR SERENA IN TORONTO
Serena Williams wore her game face when she stepped out into the stadium for her first match since telling the world she is ready to leave professional tennis.
Greeted by a standing ovation, the 23-time Grand Slam champion didn’t smile. She didn’t wave. She took a sip from a plastic bottle as she walked in. Some folks in the crowd captured the moment with the cameras on their cellphones. Others held aloft handrawn signs — oh, so many signs — with messsages such as “Queen” or “Thank you.”
No one knows exactly how many more matches Williams will play before she puts her rackets away for good, and the 40-year-old American exited the National Bank Open in Toronto on Wednesday with a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic.
While there were some familiar fist pumps and yells of “Come on!” during competition, it was only afterward that Williams really allowed her feelings to show, her voice shaking and her eyes welling during an on-court interview when Bencic ceded the spotlight.
“A lot of emotions, obviously,” Williams told spectators.
More tennis
Nick Kyrgios beat topranked defending champion Daniil Medvedev 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-2 in the National Bank Open in Montreal.
Soccer
Host nation Qatar is set to play in the opening game of its own World Cup tournament after all — and on a stand-alone day being added to the schedule barely 100 days before kickoff.
Soccer’s marquee tournament is now set start one day earlier than originally
scheduled seven years ago in a move that would allow Qatar to play Ecuador on Nov. 20, a person familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
A decision is expected this week.
• Charlie Adams converted a second-half penalty
kick to help the San Diego Loyal to a 1-0 win against visiting Monterey Bay FC at Torero Stadium. It gave the Loyal their first five-match win streak in club history.
• Carlos Vela scored in the third minute and Raul Ruidiaz converted a penalty kick in the 73rd minute in the Major League Soccer AllStar
team’s 2-1 victory over Mexico’s Liga MX in St. Paul, Minn.
Sports and courts
A woman who publicly accused star Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer of sexual assault last summer sued him on Tuesday for sexual battery, the latest development in a legal back-and-forth playing out on both coasts as Bauer attempts to save his career.
The woman’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is a counterclaim to a defamation suit Bauer lodged against the woman and her attorney in April.
• Ex-Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich filed a claim against the school seeking $25 million for wrongful termination after he was fired last year for refusing to be vaccinated for COVID-19.
Also
Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman will miss “an extended period of time” for treatment of what the school described as medical condition unrelated to football.
• San Diego’s Katherine Hui eased past 17th-seeded Gayathri Krishnan of Cupertino, 6-0, 6-1 in fourthround action of the USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 18s National Championships. The eighth-seeded Hui will face ninth-seeded Tatum Evans of McLean, Va., in the Round of 16 today at 11 a.m. at Barnes Tennis Center in Point Loma.
• Kurt Busch says he pushed himself too hard trying to return to NASCAR competition and will miss his fourth consecutive Cup Series race because of concussion-like symptoms.