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Norrie had played just one match on grass before this year’s Wimbledon after retiring injured in the French Open first round with a rib injury.
And the former world number eight looked rusty as he broke Zheng, ranked 144th, just once in the entire match.
Zheng hit 21 aces to Norrie’s four, while the 22-year-old committed just four double faults to Norrie’s 10.
Harriet Dart came close to completing a gritty comeback win but ultimately fell 6-3 3-6 6-4 to former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
The pair were scheduled to play on Court 17 on Monday, but Raducanu’s withdrawal saw their match moved to Court One.
Wildcard Dart made sure fans with tickets for the show court were not disappointed as she forced a deciding set against the world number 31 in an entertaining two-and-a-half hour display.
Ostapenko will face either Antonia Ruzic of Croatia or compatriot Darja Semenistaja – the lucky loser who replaced Raducanu in the draw.
Meanwhile, 17-year-old British wildcard Mika Stojsavljevic lost 6-2 6-1 to 2021 Olympic champion and 11th seed Belinda Bencic.
Felix Gill and Max Basing were beaten on their Grand Slam main-draw debuts, losing to 23rd seed Rafael Jodar and qualifier Shintaro Mochizuki respectively.
Alicia Dudeney, who was also making her main-draw major bow, lost 6-3 6-3 to American Alycia Parks.
Mimi Xu and Hannah Klugman, both navigating the step up to senior tennis, lost to Daria Kasatkina and 2024 Wimbledon singles champion Barbora Krejcikova respectively, while Oliver Tarvet was beaten by 25th seed Arthur Rinderknech in four sets.
There are 19 home players across the two singles draws – although 17 are playing opponents ranked inside the world’s top 55.
Reasons for the Clippers to trade Kawhi Leonard are apparent. So are reasons to keep the seven-time All-Pro forward who turned 35 on Monday.
For now, the team is engaged in discussions and entertaining offers for Leonard, who is highly regarded despite being central to a league investigation into allegations of salary-cap intervention.
Representatives for Leonard, who has one year remaining on a three-year, $152.4 million contract, have informed other teams he prefers to remain with the Clippers and would only sign an extension with the Toronto Raptors or San Antonio Spurs if the Clippers trade him, ESPN reported. Leonard helped both of those teams to NBA titles, the Raptors in 2019 and the Spurs in 2014. He was Finals MVP both years.
However, the Athletic reported that the Dallas Mavericks offered to trade power forward P.J. Washington, shooting guard Klay Thompson and draft picks for Leonard. Mavericks president Masai Ujiri held the same position with the Raptors when they won the 2019 championship.
If Leonard doesn’t agree to a contract extension with Dallas, he essentially would be a one-year rental and not worth as much in trade capital. Ujiri engineered the trade in 2018 that brought Leonard to the Raptors without the player agreeing to an extension, and the result was a championship followed by Leonard bolting to the Clippers.
Another factor in assessing Leonard’s trade value and the Clippers’ motivation to move him is the ongoing NBA investigation involving team owner Steve Ballmer, Leonard and the now-bankrupt sustainable financial technology firm Aspiration.
Triggered in October when the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast detailed a $28 million endorsement contract Leonard received from Aspiration, the NBA hired a prominent law firm to conduct the probe. Findings could be announced soon because NBA commissioner Adam Silver said June 2 that it was time to “wrap it up.”
Aspiration had a $300 million, 23-year endorsement deal with the Clippers and Ballmer personally invested $60 million into the company, whose co-founder Joseph Sanberg was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. Ballmer admits introducing Leonard to Aspiration executives but has denied that he knew details of the endorsement deal that Leonard never fulfilled.
Silver has not stated that the NBA would hold up any trade involving Leonard because of the investigation. Still, the Clippers expressed at the end of the regular season that keeping the 14-year veteran was a priority.
“Our plan is to win with Kawhi,” Clippers president Lawrence Frank said.
Leonard is coming off his best season of six with the Clippers, averaging a career-high 27.9 points over 65 games. He has averaged 20.7 points a game during his career.
The Raptors are rumored to be dangling former Lakers forward Brandon Ingram and first-round draft picks
Chris Johnson, the former NFL running back who holds the record for most yards from scrimmage in a single season, has the degenerative neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Johnson shared the diagnosis during an interview with Michael Strahan that aired Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The 40-year-old father of four spoke in his own voice but didn’t use his mouth — instead, he used his eyes to trigger a device that generated sentences based on recordings Johnson made soon after he was diagnosed last year.
“It’s continued to progress much faster than I ever imagined,” Johnson said of the disease. “I want people to understand just how quickly ALS can attack your body. Just over a year ago, I was picking up my 7-year-old daughter so she’d make a wish with her birthday cake. Today, I couldn’t do that.”
There is currently no known treatment that stops or reverses ALS, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and most people with disease die of respiratory failure within three to five years of noticing symptoms (although one in 10 survive a decade or more).
In addition to receiving the standard medication to help slow the disease’s progression, Johnson has been working with neurologist and leading ALS researcher Dr. Merit Cudkowicz. She told “Good Morning America” that Johnson has taken part in a clinical trial for a therapy “that decreases inflammation, and I think that helped him a lot.”
“At first, you’re in shock, then you realize you have two choices: You can give up, or you can fight,” Johnson said. “I chose to fight.”
Johnson’s wife Brittany told Strahan: “We’re still hopeful. We’re hopeful that a breakthrough will happen or … a miracle will happen.”
Selected by the Tennessee Titans at No. 24 in the 2008 draft, Johnson was an instant NFL star. He made the Pro Bowl in each of his first three seasons and was named the league’s offensive player of the year in 2009. Also that season, Johnson led the NFL with 2,006 rushing yards — earning the nickname CJ2K as one of only nine players to have rushed for 2,000 or more yards in a season — and set a record with 2,509 yards from scrimmage that still stands.
Johnson rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his six seasons with the Titans, then spent a year with the New York Jets and three more with the Arizona Cardinals before retiring after the 2017 season. He finished with 9,651 yards and 55 touchdowns rushing and 2,255 yards and nine touchdowns receiving.
Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk released a statement Monday morning after Johnson’s diagnosis was revealed.
“Learning this news is extremely difficult, and we will support Chris every step of the way throughout his journey,” she wrote. “We are holding him and his family close, and join our fans around the world in expressing our love for Chris.”
The Jets and Cardinals also released statements expressing their support for Johnson.
While Johnson’s body will no longer allow him to perform a task like gripping a cup, he said he wants people to know that with ALS, “your mind stays sharp.”
“People sometimes look at the physical disability and assume you’re not still the same person inside,” Johnson said. “I still think the same. I still dream. I still love my family. My body just doesn’t cooperate.”
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Today is one of those newsletters that we devote to only one topic.
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Do you remember where you were 36 years ago today?
Fernando Valenzuela was a great pitcher. I think he should be in the Hall of Fame for his on-field talents and the fact he brought thousands of new fans to the sport, all across the country.
But by 1990, he was no longer a great pitcher. He was an afterthought on the 1988 World Series title team. In 1989, he was basically a league average pitcher, going 10-13 with a 3.43 ERA. Going into his start against St. Louis on June 29, 1990, he was 5-6 with a 4.09 ERA, had given up 97 hits in 94.2 innings and had given up eight runs in 5.1 innings in his last start.
Pitching a no-hitter, which seemed possible earlier in his career, was off the table. And then, well, who better to take us through that final inning than Vin Scully?
Covering the Dodgers then for The Times was Bill Plaschke. The rest of this is his words as written that evening:
Thirty minutes before the Dodgers faced the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Fernando Valenzuela noticed on a clubhouse television set that Oakland pitcher Dave Stewart had thrown a no-hitter in Toronto.
“Fernando turned to some teammates and he said, ‘That’s great, now maybe we’ll see another no-hitter,’ ” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said.
It was the first time in the modern baseball era that two no-hitters have been pitched on the same day. It was the Dodgers’ first no-hitter since Jerry Reuss had one against the San Francisco Giants on June 27, 1980.
“And it couldn’t have happened to a tougher, more competitive guy,” Lasorda said. “You look at Fernando and he has done everything in his career except a no-hitter. And now . . . this.”
With Willie McGee on first base and one out in the ninth inning, former Dodger Pedro Guerrero hit a grounder up the middle that seemed destined for the outfield. But Valenzuela stuck out his glove, the ball nicked the leather and rolled to Juan Samuel, who stepped on second base and threw to first baseman Eddie Murray, who made the catch that sent Dodgers running to the mound.
“Do you think if I don’t touch that ball, it goes through for a single?” Valenzuela asked afterward. “Whoooa. I think it does. I think I don’t touch it, I’m in trouble.
“I was just glad to see Scioscia running to the mound from the plate. Only then did I know it was over. Thank goodness Alfredo Griffin made the catch and the throw.”
When reminded that it was Samuel who made the final play, Valenzuela laughed.
“That shows you how excited I am,” he said after improving to 6-6 with a 3.73 earned-run average. “This is a great moment for me.”
But in the final three innings, he threw 49 pitches, and was obviously tired.
“But this was a different kind of tired,” Valenzuela said. “This kind of tired did not bother me. You think I feel anything during those last inning? No way.”
“This is a different pitcher than in previous seasons,” catcher Mike Scioscia said. “This guy is not as quick as the old Fernando, but this guy still knows how to win.”
When watching the final inning as called by Vin, I was struck by a tinge of sadness when Vin gave the day and time in case “Fernando wants to play this to his grandchildren one day.” Valenzuela died in 2024. He had seven grandchildren; let’s hope they all got to sit with him and hear it.
It was also amazing to hear Vin say that Fernando had thrown only 108 pitches through eight innings, so he has plenty of ammunition left. Now baseball managers and front office people are afraid a pitcher’s arm would fall off if they throw 108 pitches today.
Monday: Dodgers (*Eric Lauer, 3-5, 4.87 ERA [2-0, 2.54 ERA with the Dodgers]) at Athletics (*Gage Jump, 3-1, 2.04 ERA), 6:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Tuesday: Dodgers (*Justin Wrobleski, 9-2, 2.71 ERA) at Athletics (*Jeffrey Springs, 3-7, 5.52 ERA), 6:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Wednesday: Dodgers (Shohei Ohtani, 8-2, 1.58 ERA) at San Diego (J.T. Ginn, 6-4, 3.15 ERA), 6:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Vin Scully and Fernando Valenzuela throw out the first pitch before Game 2 of the 2017 World Series. Watch and listen here.
Until next time …
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan says England need to change direction after a series defeat by New Zealand and believes the ECB hierarchy should approach Andy Flower to take the team forward.
England head coach Brendon McCullum says he tired to talk Ben Stokes out of his decision to retire from international cricket following the 2-1 series defeat to New Zealand.
Britain’s Jack Draper says he is “devastated” after withdrawing from Wimbledon just 24 hours before his first-round match with a long-term arm injury.
Draper, fresh off a run to the Eastbourne semi-finals last week, was due to face American sixth seed Taylor Fritz on Centre Court on Tuesday.
However, the arm problem that stopped him playing for most of the past year has once again prevented him from competing in a Grand Slam.
“There have been a lot of painful moments in the last 12 months, but this one is definitely the absolute worst,” Draper said.
It is the second significant injury blow for British interest, following Emma Raducanu’s withdrawal on Sunday because of a stress fracture in her right leg.
Draper spoke to media at Wimbledon on Sunday and gave no indication he was struggling again with the bone bruising in his serving arm.
However, Draper did say he felt the amount of injuries suffered by leading players is “pretty worrying”.
Failure in Group A brought fan anger to boiling point.
It started with a promising 2-1 win over the Czech Republic but then a team containing Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-in of Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich’s Kim Min-jae lost 1-0 to Mexico. It left the Taeguk Warriors needing a point against South Africa to secure second.
Hong, who also led the team to a group-stage exit at the 2014 World Cup, left captain and talisman Son on the bench and the team slumped to defeat, with former Tottenham Hotspur defender Lee Young-pyo describing it on television as “the worst match by a Korean football team in the 21st century”.
After the game, a reporter asked Hong if there had been an outbreak of food poisoning in the camp or something similar, as there could be no explanation for such a performance. To make matters worse, South Korea had to wait more than three days in their training camp to discover whether they would squeeze through into the last 32 as one of the best third-placed finishers or go home.
The camp had not been an especially happy place as earlier in June, media personnel were overheard on camera mocking Son’s military record. The former Tottenham star won exemption from the country’s 21-month mandatory military service by being part of the team that took gold at the 2018 Asian Games. In return, the players boycotted domestic media duties for a number of days.
Son turns 34 in July and it would not be a surprise if he soon calls time on his international career. There will be no public return to South Korea as the welcome ceremony planned at Incheon International Airport was cancelled. The captain and the players have, however, escaped most of the public ire with the focus on how the sport is governed in the country.
Josh Lowe‘s first career grand slam was all the offense the Angels needed Sunday in a 4-1 victory over the Athletics at Anaheim Stadium.
Lowe was 10 for 33 with 27 RBIs with the bases loaded during his six-year career, but had managed only two extra-base hits in those situations prior to going deep off starter Aaron Civale in the second inning.
The center fielder fouled off a pair of 1-2 pitches before sending a high cutter 403 feet to the right-field corner for his first homer since May 20.
Angels starter Sam Aldegheri (3-3) allowed one run and five hits in five innings, striking out four. José Fermin threw two scoreless innings and Samy Natera Jr. got four outs for his first major league save.
Joey Meneses drove in Jeff McNeil with a sacrifice fly in the fifth for the A’s, who finished with six hits. They went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left eight on base overall.
The A’s threatened to cut into the lead after two straight walks to open the eighth, but Ryan Zeferjahn struck out the next two batters before giving way to Natera, who retired Nick Kurtz on a fly ball.
Civale (5-5) permitted seven hits in five innings, striking out two. José Suarez tossed two scoreless innings in relief.
Up next: Angels RHP Ryan Johnson (1-2, 8.84 ERA) starts Monday night in Seattle against RHP George Kirby (6-7, 3.94) to begin a three-game set.
Heinrich Malan has stood down as head coach of Ireland’s men’s cricket team, less than 24 hours after the historic Twenty20 series win over world champions India.
The South African will leave as part of what Cricket Ireland says as a “planned transition”, and a new head coach is set to be in place for a five-game one-day international series with Afghanistan in August.
The 45-year-old has been in charge of Ireland since 2022 and his final game was a dramatic one-run victory over India to clinch the T20 series on Sunday in Belfast, which followed a first-ever victory over the world champions in any format on Friday.
Australian sixth seed Alex de Minaur was involved in the protests at last month’s French Open but decided he did not want to take part at Wimbledon.
“I think the sense that we had at Roland Garros was everyone was on board, even though we didn’t, as a collective, achieve the numbers that we were looking for,” he said.
“I thought that Wimbledon made a big step in the right direction, and something that should be noted. So this is for me to acknowledge their big step.”
Germany’s Alexander Zverev, who claimed his first major win in Paris earlier this month, also decided to step back.
“I still want to be part of the players’ movement, but also I realised the media can’t really do anything about it, or can’t really change it,” said Zverev, who represented the players in talks with the Grand Slams at Wimbledon last year.
“It’s not good to take it [out] on someone that doesn’t have the power of control, so I’m doing half an hour [of media]. But I still hope for some change in tennis, for sure.”
This year’s Wimbledon singles champions will each take home £3.6m, up from £3m last year, while first-round losers will earn £80,000.
SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers claimed a series win against the San Diego Padres with a 4-2 victory Sunday, widening the gap between division rivals to 10 games.
The Dodgers (54-30), who have the best record in the majors, have won five of the first six games of a three-city trip that ends in Sacramento.
A bounce-back start from right-hander Emmet Sheehan made the Dodgers’ win Sunday possible. He held the Padres to one run, on Manny Machado’s fourth-inning homer, through five innings.
“Maybe being a little more comfortable in my mechanics,” Sheehan said after limiting the Padres to two hits. “But also just the focus in between starts of trying to get a little more execution instead of delivery thoughts. I had seven days, so I got to throw two bullpens this week, which is nice.”
It was the first time Sheehan held an opponent to a single run since May 8, when he threw 4⅔ innings against the Atlanta Braves.
“He just beared down and made pitches when he needed to,” manager Dave Roberts said, “versus feeling it with the mechanics or being uncertain.”
Mookie Betts stayed hot with his bases-loaded, two-run single off Padres starter Michael King to spearhead a three-run rally in the fifth. Betts also singled in the seventh.
Freddie Freeman had an RBI on a nine-pitch walk in the fifth, and Shohei Ohtani drove in the Dodgers’ first run with a single in the third.
“The last six weeks, Shohei’s been out of this world,” Roberts said. “Freddie’s been very consistent all year, and then now we got Mookie this last week on track. So it has been the better part of the season that we haven’t had all three of those guys. You can see it — when those three guys are threats, it just kind of takes a lot of pressure off everybody else.”
Over the three-game series, the Dodgers outscored the Padres 20-12. Here are offensive takeaways from the series:
Tucker ‘grinding’ through
Kyle Tucker hits a two-run home run against the San Diego Padres on Saturday in the Dodgers’ 15-3 win.
(Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)
Dodgers right fielder Kyle Tucker never had been through a stretch like this. He entered Sunday with a .719 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, the lowest he’s had 77 games into a season in his career.
“I feel fine coming to the field and everything, it’s just not being as productive as I normally am, or as I want to be, kind of sucks,” Tucker said in a conversation with The Times a couple of weeks ago. “But I’ve just got to come back for the next at-bat, or the next day, and whatever, and just move on.”
Has battling this uncharacteristic slump taught him anything?
“I’d rather not suck,” he said. “But just try and grab through and just whenever anything works or clicks or whatever, just don’t let it go.”
Tucker has had moments this season when it looked like he was heading toward an offensive turnaround.
In mid-April, he homered twice in three games, including a three-hit performance. In early May, he went on a six-game hitting streak. He hit .303 over a nine-game stretch in mid-June. But none led to sustained success.
So, when Tucker logged three hits, including a home run, on Saturday as the Dodgers routed the Padres 15-3, he was cautious in his optimism. Tucker even nitpicked the nine-pitch at-bat that ended in the pull-side homer.
“There were some pitches I swung at earlier in the at-bat that I thought should’ve gotten the job done earlier, just didn’t put a great swing on it,” he said after the game.
Manager Dave Roberts was more enthusiastic about that at-bat.
“He’s handled it well,” Roberts said. “He’s frustrated, certainly. But he hasn’t run from the work. Even [Friday] night after the game, he was hitting in the cage. … You hear the word ‘grind’ a lot, but he’s grinding. It’s good to see him have some success. I just liked that one at-bat tonight where it was just compete. It wasn’t about mechanics. It was about competing and getting the job done.”
On Sunday, Tucker singled in four at-bats.
Edman’s consistency
Tommy Edman hits against the San Diego Padres on Friday.
(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)
There were times last year when utility player Tommy Edman could look at video of his swing and think, “OK, that doesn’t look like how I want it to look.” But there was only so much he could do in the middle of the season, while playing through nagging ankle issues.
“Part of it is kind of just breaking habits that I built last year,” said Edman, who underwent surgery on his right ankle in the offseason. “Was just getting into some bad movements with the lower body, probably just compensating for the ankle, and hips get out of whack, and that kind of stuff. So I’m hopeful that I’ll just be able to keep this up the rest of the year and just be consistent with it.”
Since returning from the injured list on June 16 to make his season debut, Edman is hitting .333 (11 for 33) with a .405 .on-base percentage. He hit his first triple and second double of the season in the Dodgers’ blowout win Saturday.
“I feel like this is kind of one of the rare times where both swings feel good, both from the right and left,” switch-hitting Edman said after that game. “It’s really tough to maintain both swings over the course of the season, so just happy that I feel that way.”
Betts is back
When Betts went three for four, a triple short of the cycle, in the Dodgers’ series finale in Minnesota last week, he couldn’t put his finger on a cue that had snapped his swing into shape over the last couple of weeks.
“Today, I was able to just find something,” he said then. “I don’t even know really what I found. After the home run the first at bat, I wasn’t sure what I did, but I just kind of stayed there. And I think that was the beauty of it. And not really fully knowing and just kind of going to play kind of let me know my training is paying off.”
It continued playing off. That performance kicked off a three-game homer streak. And by the end of his two-week heater, Betts had raised his OPS from .591 to .737.
By Saturday night, Roberts was ready to declare that Betts was back.
“I say ‘back’ because I just think there’s more intent with him in the batter’s box and a lot less indecisiveness,” Roberts said. “So for me, if he can have that kind of proactive approach, aggressive approach, then everything else is going to take care of itself.”
Betts credited his resurgence to a shift in how he prepares for games. Instead of taking 100 swings in the cage with a specific cue, he’s building up from a blank slate every day.
“I used to have things I would think about that would produce a swing, and now I’m actually just training my body every day,” he said. “So kind of one in the same, but they’re just two completely different ways of going about it. And still trying to get fully used to it, but it’s working, so I’m not changing it.”
Scotland’s Lewis Ferguson reportedly told Bologna he will assess his future after the World Cup, while Wolfsburg are said to be closing in on Celtic-linked goalkeeper Tjark Ernst.
The Williams sisters, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are back at Wimbledon. What year is it again?
The mention of those names may make it feel like we’re stuck in a timewarp – but, no, it is 2026 and some of the sport’s greatest are returning to SW19, in one way or another.
American icon Serena Williams, 44, is making a blockbuster singles comeback after four years away from the sport and also resumes her iconic doubles pairing with sister Venus, 46.
Djokovic, meanwhile, is only a week younger than 39-year-old Murray yet is still chasing that elusive record 25th Grand Slam title.
“It’s very special to be here – we have quite a history here. It’s nice to be back in 2026,” said Venus Williams, who has won five singles and six doubles titles at the All England Club.
As one of the highlights of the British sporting summer, Wimbledon never goes under the radar, but the presence of the old guard will help elevate the grass-court Grand Slam in a summer stacked with sporting events.
Eyeballs are inevitably trained on the men’s football World Cup, particularly with England still in the competition, while the women’s T20 cricket World Cup and British Grand Prix are also jostling for the limelight.
The appearance of the legends – along with younger superstars like Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, plus the high-profile return of Briton Jack Draper – will ensure Wimbledon will remain at the centre of attention.
“We’re always unbelievably excited to be part of an exciting summer of sport,” Wimbledon tournament director Jamie Baker told BBC World Service.
“Every summer there are always other big events on and I think that does add to the buzz around sport in general. We do love being part of that.”
It was an uncapped warm-up game for the Nations Championship tournament which starts with the opening game against Fiji at the Cardiff City Stadium next Saturday before away trips against Argentina and South Africa.
Morgan took over the captaincy at half-time when Lake was taken off.
“I love being back,” said Morgan. “It’s always an honour to be able to put the jersey on and I was chuffed to be back in the field with the boys.
“It was a tough game against a good Barbarians side and it was great to be able to get that win.”
Morgan says he has seen improvements under Tandy since his return.
“It’s been great to be able to watch because you can see how Steve and the coaches want to implement the game,” said Morgan.
“You can see during the Six Nations we’re getting better every game. You could see the identity we were trying to bring through.
“You always want to be out in the field, but it was great to be able to watch the boys play and I thought they did a brilliant job.”
Minutes after the final whistle was blown on Canada’s historic World Cup victory against South Africa on Sunday, coach Jesse Marsch gathered his players and staff in a huge huddle and delivered some words of inspiration to them.
“Canadian heroes,” he called his team after they won a knockout game at the tournament for the first time to reach the last 16.
“The future of the sport in this country is huge because of you.”
Marsch is known for grandiose comments – exaggerated and emotional statements delivered to provide maximum impact.
But his words here ring true – the sport in the country is changing.
“It is starting to become known as football now, not soccer,” one fan told BBC Sport before the match.
“Canada is becoming a football nation.”
That was the objective Marsch set out to achieve when he became Canada boss two years ago, a goal that at the time seemed highly unlikely for a country whose first love is widely regarded as ice hockey.
Mexico hosted this World Cup’s opener while the USA stages the final. Attention has been far greater on the two in the build-up, leaving Canada as something like the forgotten co-host.
But Canada quietly went about its business, building interest and passion for the tournament and their national team from within.
The country’s captain, Alphonso Davies, is used to large, football-mad crowds playing for Bayern Munich and in the Champions League.
However, he has noticed the change in Canada since the World Cup got under way, and said he cried at seeing so many fans clad in red and white in Toronto for their opening game against Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“It was surreal because I’ve never seen so many Canadians at a football match before,” he said before the win against South Africa.
Less than two hours before the Dodgers took the field in Minneapolis on Wednesday, a pair of powerful earthquakes rattled Venezuela, where the wife and two kids of Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas were visiting and where his sister lives.
The successive magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes left the country’s northern coastal state of La Guaira in ruins, collapsing more than 770 buildings and killing at least 1,450 people, local authorities said Sunday.
All of Rojas’ family members were OK, the Venezuelan native told reporters ahead of Friday’s game against the Padres in San Diego.
“Literally two blocks away from where my family was, two buildings collapsed — the whole building,” he said. “I’m lucky, to be honest with you guys. I’m really lucky to have my family still alive and with me. I’m not taking this for granted.”
Rojas’ wife and kids were in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, which is only about six miles south of the destruction along the coast. His wife was there to renew her passport, and the kids were going to try to get Venezuelan citizenship. His sister was in Los Teques, Rojas’ hometown about 17 miles south of the coastal destruction.
Rescue workers search through rubble on Saturday in Catia La Mar following the devastating double earthquakes.
(Fernando Vergara / Associated Press)
“It’s really tough to see teammates of mine and players that I played with at some point in my career to lose family members, to lose kids,” said Rojas, who had spent years playing baseball in La Guaira. “It’s really devastating. It’s been really hard for me to go to sleep at night.”
Rojas, on Friday, said he was talking daily with his family members, who were still in Venezuela. He hoped to bring them back to the United States as soon as possible. Aftershocks continued to rattle the country into Sunday morning.
As the Dodgers and Padres started their series in Petco Park on Friday, both teams wore caps with the letters “VZ” embroidered on the side to honor the people of Venezuela as the road to recovery begins.
“That means a lot because both teams will be doing it — it means a lot, because it brings awareness,” Rojas said.
“We are on one of the biggest stages in sports, and I really appreciate what the Dodgers do to support us,” he added. “It’s not just what happens now, it’s what’s going to happen in the future. It’s going to take a long time for people to recover.”
Times staff writer Maddie Lee contributed to this report.
Remember when we were sure the World Cup would suffer from all the issues that had everyone seeing red before the first ball was kicked?
And remember when we were certain soccer could never catch on in this country?
Despite controversies over visas and ticket prices and transportation, and in spite of consternation over expansion and new rules, the game has, as usual, proved too good to fail.
And we, the American people, have become unusually engrossed in it.
We’ve been tuning in on TV in record numbers and, even at exorbitant prices, helping to sell out our 70,000-some-capacity stadiums. Before group play was even finished, this tournament — staged also in Mexico and Canada — already outdrew the 1994 World Cup, which was hosted by the United States and set an attendance record of nearly 3.6 million.
We’ve been loving the healthy cultural exchange, and we’re being reminded that cultural barriers of traditional sports fandom can be breached.
So now, to keep our interest from drying out like a pitch on a hot summer day, the goal should be to keep the market saturated with soccer. That will take Major League Soccer tearing down all the walls.
It’s already turned the page on its calendar, adopting a summer-to-spring season format that will better blend with the global game.
Now MLS needs to make its games easier to watch, and to do its part to make the sport easier to play.
Canada goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, left, celebrates with teammate Jonathan David after a 1-0 win over South Africa at the World Cup on Sunday.
(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)
While the proverbial iron is hot, it needs a strike like Stephen Eustáquio’s winning rocket in the 92nd minute of Canada’s 1-0 victory against South Africa on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
Eleven players on the two teams were MLS representatives — including Eustáquio, who spent the last six months in LAFC’s midfield.
Goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, who played two seasons with LAFC and now plays for Orlando City, stopped the only shot he saw for his second clean sheet this World Cup, which saw the Canadians succeed in their first knockout stage appearance.
There’s been no avoiding MLS players in this World Cup. The greatest of them is piling up goals for Argentina: Lionel Messi, the Inter Miami superstar, is now the all-time World Cup goal-scorer (with 19).
MLS has set an attendance record too, with 44 players participating. It ranks as the league with the second-most players apart from the top five European leagues. LAFC had three current players in the mix.
But wait. Record skip. Before you celebrate the MLS’s contributions to this soccer spectacle, check with the VAR. Yep, without the 13 MLS players representing nations that rank 40th or lower in FIFA’s world ranking, there actually would be fewer than the 37 MLS participants at the World Cup four years ago.
A baby’s first steps are for celebrating, but three decades after the league’s formation, MLS is still searching for a giant leap. It’s still having a mean time of trying to make “fetch” happen for real.
It would help to make its games more readily available — not to the already converted, but to fans who didn’t even know what they didn’t know about soccer until the World Cup began in their backyards.
MLS has already brought MLS from behind Apple’s season pass paywall. And the league and streaming service also reportedly have agreed to a revised media rights deal that will end at the end of the 2028-29 season, three and a half years earlier than expected.
But the hat trick would be to remove the need to subscribe to streaming service to watch MLS games altogether, and then get those matches onto the networks people know to tune into for their sports.
Normalize watching American soccer.
And stop gatekeeping. MLS’s developmental programs are too restrictive and exclusive — they’re not developing more soccer players, they’re curtailing who can play.
It’s in the league’s interests, and the sport’s in this country, to encourage as many players to play as much as they can — including for their high school teams, which MLS Next bars.
They’ve got people in the tent; the goal should be to make them want to stay.
To make them want to join the world’s circus, not to let it pack up and move on, out of sight and out of mind, until it swings back through years from now.
-13 H Ryu (Kor); -11 I Yoon (Kor); -10 B Henderson (Can), D Weber (Ned); -7 A Corpuz (US), A Kim (US), A Lee (US); -6 SY Kim (Kor), J Thitikul (Tha), N Korda (US), AL Kim (Kor)
Selected others: +5 L Maguire (Ire); +6 G Dryburgh (Sco)
South Korea’s Haeran Ryu landed a maiden major with a two-shot victory at the Women’s PGA Championship.
The 25-year-old went into the day with a one-shot lead and relinquished her place at the top of the leaderboard in a fluctuating final round, with three bogeys in the first five holes.
But she got back on track with five birdies in a two-under-par round to finish on -13 and take the $1.95m (£1.48m) winner’s cheque.
The tournament purse of $13m (£9.8m) is the largest in women’s golf history.
“It feels like a dream has come true because I tried a couple times to be a major champion and I didn’t get it,” Ryu said.
“Today I did it and I’m so happy right now.”
It was an incredible comeback for a player who was tied for 70th and 10 shots off the lead after the opening round at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota.
Canada’s Brooke Henderson and Dewi Weber of the Netherlands each held the lead following a weather-delayed start to the round but both finished on -10, tied for third – a career-best finish in a major for Weber.
Ryu’s compatriot Ina Yoon had fallen away on the third day after leading by five, but fought back to finish second on -11.
America’s Nelly Korda – chasing a historic third straight major championship win – was four shots off the lead at the start of play but could not kick on, ending tied for eighth on six under.
Fears about the British number one’s fitness grew over the past week.
Raducanu was spotted wearing a protective boot on Wednesday, then was unable to train on Thursday and Friday because of what is believed to be a shin problem.
The 2021 US Open champion returned to the court on Saturday to test her fitness and, wearing strapping around her lower right leg, started with a gentle hour-long session with her team.
But she then cut short another practice session with Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya – when the pair played a set – with 10 minutes remaining.
There were signs of improvement in her practice session on Sunday morning.
Raducanu was slightly less tentative against hitting partner Alexis Canter – particularly when she pushed with her right leg on the forehand side – but it was not as rigorous a test of her movement as she got against Kalinskaya.
Later on Sunday, Raducanu told the media she was willing to push herself and take more risk with the injury in order to step out at the All England Club.
“Playing at Wimbledon, in front of a home crowd, means everything to me, so this is really difficult to process,” Raducanu said.
When FIFA expanded the World Cup field from 32 to 48 teams for this summer’s tournament, the gnashing of teeth and clutching of pearls was as predictable as it was loud. The field would be watered down, the traditionalists protested. The group stage would be a series of blowouts, the sharks would devour the minnows.
In fact, none of that happened.
What we got instead was plucky Cape Verde playing No. 3 Spain to a draw and becoming the smallest nation to reach the elimination rounds. We got Austria advancing on a goal six minutes into stoppage time — eliminating unbeaten Iran, which deserved better — and Canada, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo all winning World Cup games for the first time.
We got Lionel Messi scoring six goals and Mexico and Spain giving up none. We got South Africa, Canada, Egypt and Cape Verde advancing to the knockout rounds for the first time while South Korea and Uruguay went home.
It was one of the most surprising, exciting and compelling group stages in recent World Cup history. And on Sunday it gave way to the first game of the knockout rounds, with Canada beating South Africa 1-0 on a goal by LAFC midfielder Stephen Eustáquio in the second minute of stoppage time.
Canada’s Stephen Eustáquio reacts after a 1-0 win over South Africa at the World Cup on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Unlike much of the group stage, Sunday’s game was a sloppy, sleepy affair, with South Africa relying on some heroic play from its back line to keep the game even. But it ended with a bang with Eustáquio latching on to a loose ball at top of the box and blasting a right-footed volley just inside the left post.
Canada will play the winner of Monday’s Netherlands-Morocco match in the round of 16 next week. For South Africa, the World Cup is over.
For both countries, this World Cup was the most successful ever. Canada, which is sharing host duties with Mexico and the U.S., has won twice. South Africa had won games before, but it had never gotten beyond the group stage.
For South Africa, that success is part of a continental soccer resurgence. Four years ago in Qatar, Morocco became the first African nation to reach the World Cup semifinals. This summer, thanks to the expanded field, 10 African nations qualified for the tournament and nine advanced to the round of 32.
And the rise of African soccer hasn’t just boosted the fortunes of African teams. Top-ranked France, a World Cup favorite, has 21 players of African descent on its roster; at least a dozen other non-African teams, including Canada, have at least two players of African heritage.
Canada is one of the world’s most diverse countries with nearly a quarter of its population having been born somewhere else. Former coach John Herdman leaned into that diversity when he took over the men’s team in 2018; four years later, Canada made its second trip to the World Cup with a lineup that included four dual nationals.
Jesse Marsch, the U.S.-born coach who succeeded Herdman, doubled down on that. As a result, the 26 players on Canada’s roster, or their parents, come from more than 17 countries — from Iran, Croatia, Jamaica and Barbados to Haiti, Lebanon, Nigeria and the Philippines. Captain Alphonso Davies, Canada’s best player, was born to Liberian parents in a refugee camp in Ghana before being resettled in Edmonton, becoming a citizen in 2017.
Canada goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau makes a save against South Africa on Sunday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Davies, who hasn’t played since sustained an acute hamstring injury in early May, came on in the 76th minute Sunday and had an immediate influence, threading a perfect pass to the feet of Promise David, whose right-footed shot from the top of the box drifted inches wide of the left post.
Three minutes later, Davies drew two defenders to him on the left flank, opening space for Jonathan David to slip into the box and get off a tight-angled shot near the end line that stood up South African keeper Ronwen Williams. But the winner came from Eustáquio, the son of Portuguese parents who Herdman wooed away from the Portuguese U-21 team in 2019.
He has made 60 appearances with Canada’s senior national team, none bigger than Sunday’s.
Canada’s Tani Oluwaseyi, center, gets caught between South Africa’s Khuliso Mudau (20) and Sphephelo Sithole during the first half Sunday.
