Cameron

Britain’s Chantelle Cameron has vacated her WBC light-welterweight world title in protest at not being able to compete under the same rules as male fighters.

In women’s professional boxing title fights are usually over 10 rounds, each of two minutes, while men’s title bouts are 12 rounds of three minutes.

“Women’s boxing has come a long way, but there’s still progress to be made,” said 34-year-old Cameron.

“I’ve always believed in equality, and that includes the choice to fight equal rounds, equal opportunities, and equal respect.

“I’m proud of my accomplishment in becoming a WBC champion, but it’s time to take a stand for what’s right and for the future of the sport.”

Cameron was elevated from ‘interim’ champion to full WBC light-welterweight world champion last month after Ireland’s Katie Taylor informed the sanctioning body she planned to take time away from boxing.

Since turning professional in 2017, Cameron has won 21 of 22 fights, is a former undisputed light-welterweight world champion and has also held a world title at lightweight.

She handed Taylor her first career defeat in May 2023 to become undisputed champion, before losing the rematch six months later.

A trilogy bout had been mandated, but Taylor chose not to pursue it as she takes a break from the sport.

With stone cottages, beautiful countryside and roaring fireplaces, the beautiful UK market town wouldn’t be out of place in the classic Christmas film The Holiday

I’ve always been captivated by the snug atmosphere of the classic Christmas film The Holiday, but I believed it would be nearly impossible to find a place that could mirror Cameron Diaz’s experience.

However, there’s one quaint market town in the UK that fits the bill perfectly. On a recent weekend getaway in the Yorkshire Dales, I visited the idyllic Middleham and was immediately taken aback by its charm.

The main cobbled street is adorned with a diverse array of antique shops, tea rooms and fish and chip shops, not to mention the beautiful stone cottages boasting picture-perfect flower pots and charming trinkets on their porches. Rose Cottage in The Holiday may be fictional (apologies for the spoiler), but the homes in Middleham certainly give it a run for its money.

The entire place feels as though it’s been preserved in time, and I mean that in the best possible way. I made a pit stop at the Castle Keep Tea Rooms where you’ll discover about 6 tables, a crackling fireplace and comfy armchairs.

The menu offered all the traditional breakfast items you could desire, some light sandwiches and some seriously scrumptious cakes baked on-site.

Everything is within walking distance, primarily because it takes about 10 minutes to traverse from one end of the town to the other; although be prepared for the hill!

The town, known as the childhood home of Richard III and the location of the historic Middleham Castle, is steeped in history. I decided to visit the English Heritage site, being the main attraction, and was pleasantly surprised.

The ruins are quite charming and impressive, and it’s easy to imagine how grand the castle must have been in its prime. If you dare to climb the winding staircase to the top, you’ll be rewarded with stunning views of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the town below. (Adult tickets start from £9.50, more information can be found on english-heritage. org.uk). The ruins and the views give you a feeling of being in the Game of Thrones universe; I half expected dragons to fly overhead.

The town’s prime location on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park makes it an ideal base for walkers; there are countless footpaths and trails around, and some fantastic pubs with low beams and roaring fires where you can enjoy a pint. (The Dante Arms was a particular favourite).

For families, Lightwater Valley Family Adventure Park is just a half hour’s drive away and offers a plethora of rides, rollercoasters and attractions for children aged 12 and under. We booked a group ticket which worked out at about £15 per person and were extremely impressed by what was included in the ticket.

When it comes to lodging, there’s a vast selection available. I was off to Middleham for a weekend getaway with mates, but since I live a few hours away from Yorkshire, I opted to book a snug cottage on Airbnb for one night to get the travel out of the way and savour the region.

The stone walls, plush furnishings, and delightful decor gave me serious ‘The Holiday’ vibes.

The following day, I made my way just down the road to Middleham House, which was ideal for our group of roughly 24 people. It’s no small task finding a pleasant base for such a large crowd, but the house didn’t disappoint with its massive living room, library, dining room, and roomy ensuite bedrooms. A crackling fireplace was also available, making it hard to pull myself away to actually do some sightseeing! You can learn more and book stays at themiddlehamhouse.com.

Britain’s Cameron Norrie described his upset of Carlos Alcaraz as “the biggest win of my career” as he reached the Paris Masters last 16 with a gritty comeback against the world number one.

Norrie, who was beaten in straight sets by the Spaniard in this year’s Wimbledon quarter-finals, won 4-6 6-3 6-4 in the second round of the ATP Masters 1,000 event in the French capital.

“This win is so big for me,” said Norrie, who missed the Olympic Games in Paris and the US Open last year because of a forearm injury.

“I had lost the first round of the qualifiers here last year. Coming back from my injury, I’ve been trying to enjoy my tennis in the second half of the year and I was able to do that.

“To get the biggest win of my career, my first win over a world number one, and probably the most confident player in the world right now, I am pleased with the way I did it.”

Alcaraz won the first set before Norrie responded strongly in the second by breaking early and maintaining his momentum to set up the decider.

The world number 31 then played an incredible backhand pass to break Alcaraz in the final set and saved two break points on his way to victory.

“I actually went for a walk this morning with my coach and we talked through serving for the match and what I needed to tell myself,” said Norrie, who beat Sebastian Baez in straight sets in Monday’s first round.

“I was so, so tight serving for the match yesterday against Baez.

“I told myself I deserved to be in this moment, I want to be here, and I felt quite relaxed.

“It was a nice walk, a very important walk.”

The Briton will next face the winner of the second-round match between wildcards – and cousins – Valentin Vacherot and Arthur Rinderknech.

Alcaraz, who registered 54 unforced errors on Tuesday, was returning from an ankle injury and playing his first match on the tour since beating Taylor Fritz in the Japan Open final at the end of September.

He now risks losing his number one ranking if rival Jannik Sinner, who will face Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the second, goes on to win the Paris tournament.

“I’m really disappointed about my level,” Alcaraz said after the defeat.

“I had all the ideas clear, all the goals clear but even in the first set which I won, I felt I could do a lot more than I actually did.

“I have to give credit to Cam. He played really well, a solid match, and I think that was the key.”

Britain’s Cameron Norrie is “pumped” to face world number one Carlos Alcaraz in the second round of the Paris Masters after beating Sebastian Baez in straight sets.

The world number 31 beat Argentine Baez, ranked 12 places below him, 6-3 6-4 in a match which featured six breaks of serve.

Norrie won the opening three games before having his serve broken to 15 as Baez pulled it back to 3-3.

However, the 30-year-old regrouped to win the next three games, converting his second set point.

Norrie threatened to throw away a 3-0 lead again in the second set, saving a break point in the sixth game, and later saved four more in the 10th game before closing out the match at the first opportunity.

“I was really tight going to serve for the match. I said I was going to pretend it was 0-30 and then it was 0-30 and 0-40,” Norrie told Sky Sports.

“It was about getting the job done and it was nice to face some adversity. It was not a typical match. He fought well.”

Norrie will meet Alcaraz, who exited last year’s tournament in the third round, on Tuesday, with the Spaniard playing his first match on tour since beating Taylor Fritz in the Japan Open final at the end of September.

Alcaraz has won five of their seven meetings, most recently beating Norrie in straight sets in this year’s Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Norrie’s compatriot Jacob Fearnley is in first-round action later on Monday against 12th seed Andrey Rublev.

Cameron Crowe’s charming new memoir is an elegy for a lost time and place, when rock ‘n’ roll culture was still a secret handshake and the music press wasn’t just another publicity tentacle for giant corporations to shill their product (excepting the fine writers at the Los Angeles Times, of course). In fact, the “music press” as a concept is vestigial at best now, the internet having snuffed it out, but when Crowe was writing his features in the 1970s, primarily for Rolling Stone, only a handful of print publications allowed fans to glean any insight about the musicians they admired or to even see photos of them.

Crowe was one of those fans. He spent his adolescence in Palm Springs, a town with “a thousand swimming pools and the constant hum of air conditioners,” in a basement apartment near the freeway. A loner and a nerd raised by a former Army commanding officer and a strong-willed, whip-smart mother who had firm ideas about how young Cameron should conduct himself. Any humiliations Crowe might have suffered as an uncertain teen were for his mother merely speed bumps on the journey to self-actualization, ideally as a lawyer. She had a wealth of Dale Carnegie-esque aphorisms to pump up her young charge, such as “put on your magic shoes,” or “Mind is in every cell of the body. Thoughts are everything.”

“She hated rock and roll,” Crowe writes. “Rock was inelegant, and worse, obsessed with base issues like sex and drugs.”

(Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster)

As we have seen in the 2000 film “Almost Famous,” Crowe’s autobiographical account of his early years, young Cameron cared little about sex or drugs, music being his only lodestar. When his family relocated to San Diego, Crowe found himself in a conservative town with virtually no outlets for music except the local sports arena, where he witnessed his first big-time rock show accompanied by his mom: a post-comeback Elvis, knee deep in Vegas schmaltz, bounding onstage “in a glittering white jumpsuit …. striking karate poses.” A week later, mom and son witnessed Eric Clapton, full of fire with his band Derek and the Dominos. “I understand your music,” Alice Crowe finally conceded. “It’s better than ours.”

San Diego had little pockets of cultural insurrection that Crowe sought out like a moth to flame. When his sister Cindy nabbed a job with the local underground paper called the Door, Crowe wedged his way in, not because he had any interest in radical politics: his hero Lester Bangs, the iconoclastic rock critic whom he had read in Rolling Stone and Creem, had contributed work there.

As he does so often in this book, Crowe pulls the reader in with his keenly observant eye that would serve him so well in his second career as a filmmaker. The Door’s editor Bill Maguire “had a healthy girth, an open shirt with a silver pendant, and rippling brown hair. The kind of character Richard Harris used to play, most of the time with a goblet in his hand.” Maguire and his staff are hippie idealists, wary of sullying their political mission with trivialities like record reviews. But Crowe talks Maguire into letting him weigh in on a James Taylor record, and Crowe’s career is launched. He is 14.

Cameron Crowe, who started his music journalism career as a teen, pulls the reader in with his keenly observant eye that would serve him so well in his second career as a filmmaker.

(Neal Preston)

Crowe would encounter no such resistance as he worked his way into Rolling Stone, whose owner Jann Wenner gladly accepted record company advertising to keep his counterculture publication afloat. Crowe had found his professional home, filing long, admiring features with some of the era’s most important acts.

Crowe’s Dec. 6, 1973, cover story on the Allman Brothers was meant to atone for an earlier profile on the band written for the magazine by Grover Lewis, a brutally honest and often unsavory portrait. Crowe’s do-over feature, in contrast, is anodyne and respectful; the band is even given room to refute some of the facts Lewis included in his story.

Far more interesting is the stuff Crowe left out of that piece that he has now put into his memoir. To wit: Shortly after their perfectly lovely afternoon together, Gregg Allman, clearly in a drug-induced psychotic state, calls Crowe to his hotel room and demands that Crowe physically hand over the tapes of their interview, or else face legal consequences. “How do I know you aren’t with the FBI?” Allman asked Crowe. “You’ve been talking to everybody. Taking notes with your eyes.” It’s hard to imagine Crowe’s mentor Bangs not leading with that scene.

Crowe was covering rock music at a time when publicists had not become the human guardrails they are today, insulating their clients from anything that doesn’t celebrate them. There were no record company representatives present when Crowe sat in the lobby of an El Torito restaurant in Mission Hills with Kris Kristofferson, whose wife Rita Coolidge was waiting for the singer with her family in the bar (underage Crowe wasn’t allowed inside). Or when Crowe went long with David Bowie, interviewing him on and off for a year and a half while Bowie was making his 1976 album “Station to Station.”

Camped out with his wife Angie in a Beverly Hills mansion on North Doheny Drive, Bowie is affable and candid, despite subsisting on a diet of red peppers, milk and cocaine. “Over the months, I became acclimated to the normality within his insulated lifestyle,” Crowe writes. “Oh, sometimes there might be a hexagon drawn on the curtains in his bedroom or a bottle of urine on the windowsill.” While showing Crowe the indoor swimming pool, Bowie remarks that the only problem with the house “is that Satan lives in that swimming pool.”

Such weird scenes inside this once-mysterious world have been totally effaced, now that every musician can curate his own image on social media. Reading “The Uncool,” which touches on Crowe’s Hollywood career without delving too deep into it, reminds us of what has been lost, the myths and mystique that fueled our rock star fantasies and gave the music an aura of magic.

Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and the Real Chinatown.”

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The Chargers leaned on a lot of backups Sunday, but with the game against the Miami Dolphins on the line, they turned to Mr. Reliable.

Cameron Dicker kicked a 35-yard field goal with five seconds remaining to lift his team to a 29-27 win, the final points in a game that included six lead changes.

It was the fifth field goal of the day for Dicker, who has never missed from 40 yards or closer.

Chargers safety Derwin James Jr. clinched the win with an interception on the final play, Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s third pick of the day.

The sparse crowd had erupted minutes earlier when Tagovailoa hit Darren Waller for a seven-yard touchdown, reclaiming the lead with 46 seconds on the clock.

But Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert answered with a lightning-quick drive downfield to set up the winning field goal.

The Chargers, ravaged by injuries, effectively leaned on their reserves to help pave the way for their first victory in three weeks.

Reserve running back Kimani Vidal rushed for 124 yards and turned a short pass into a touchdown. He was promoted from the practice squad last Wednesday after the Chargers lost rookie first-round pick Omarion Hampton to an ankle injury. Earlier this season, the team lost veteran running back Najee Harris to a torn Achilles tendon.

Chargers running back Kimani Vidal scores a touchdown in the third quarter Sunday against the Dolphins.

(Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)

The performance marked the first 100-yard game by Vidal, drafted in the sixth round out of Troy University by the Chargers in 2024.

It was the second consecutive week the 1-5 Dolphins were burned by a little-known running back, as Carolina’s Rico Dowdle trampled them for 206 yards in Week 5. Miami came into the game with the NFL’s worst run defense.

On Sunday, the Chargers made seven trips to the red zone but failed to make the most of those, with two touchdowns and five field goals.

Giving the visiting defense all it could handle was Miami’s De’Von Archane, who had a 49-yard touchdown run in the first quarter and a four-yarder in the fourth. The Dolphins repeatedly fed him the ball down the stretch and scored on the touchdown catch by Waller, but they couldn’t hold off Herbert’s final drive.

Stopping the run has been an issue for the Chargers, too, as Washington’s Jacory Croskey-Merritt ran for 111 yards and two touchdowns against them the week before.

The Chargers won their first three games of the season, running the table against AFC West opponents, but lost the next two games at the New York Giants and home against the Washington Commanders.

Not only had the Chargers lost their two top running backs, but they have had to reshuffle their offensive line multiple times because of injuries. They have designed their offense to get the ball out of Justin Herbert’s hands quickly, as he has been hit more than any quarterback in the league this season.

That was the case in the first half of Sunday’s game as well, as Herbert was hit four times — and sacked once — by the Dolphins, who registered just 18 quarterback hits in the first five games combined.

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert scrambles during the second half against the Dolphins.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

But the Chargers came alive in the second half, overcoming a 13-9 halftime deficit, with a five-yard touchdown reception by Ladd McConkey, a seven-yard scoring catch by Vidal, and a fourth field goal by Dicker.

The Chargers, without injured receiver Quentin Johnston, leaned more heavily into rookie tight end Oronde Gadsden II, whose father played receiver for the Dolphins for six seasons.

The younger Gadsden caught seven passes Sunday but also had a fumble that set up Achane’s first touchdown.

Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie claimed a first win since September’s US Open, beating Frenchman Arthur Cazaux in a third-set tie-break at the Shanghai Masters.

The British number two was beaten by Novak Djokovic in the third round at Flushing Meadows and has since tasted back-to-back defeats in Chengdu and Beijing.

But it proved to be third-time lucky in China for Norrie as the five-time winner on the ATP Tour clinched a rollercoaster 6-3 0-6 7-6 (7-5) win over the world number 70.

Norrie, the 30th seed and ranked 33rd in the world, showed all his experience as he breezed through the opening set courtesy of two breaks, making just four unforced errors and barely dropping a point on serve.

Yet 23-year-old Cazaux came out firing in the second set, claiming a first break of serve in the opening game before going on to inflict just a seventh bagel – 6-0 defeat – of Norrie’s career.

The Briton did well to regroup in the third, once again showing too much guile for his younger opponent, outfoxing him with his left-hand serve to regain a measure of control.

Neither player was able to make a dent on their opponent’s serve, as they struggled through hot and humid conditions, but a double fault from Cazaux in the third point of the tie-break ultimately proved the difference in a match that lasted two hours.

After being given a bye in the first round, Norrie’s first win at a Masters 1000 event since May, when he won on the clay in Rome, set up a third-round match against 19-year-old American Learner Tien.

BIG BROTHER housemate Cameron revealed the surprising REAL reason he entered the house.

The 22-year-old farmer, from Somerset, got candid with fellow housemate Zelah, and opened up about his true intentions for coming onto the show.

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Cameron, who introduced himself as an introvert, told his co-star that he had entered the house on a mission to lose weight, as the pair openly discussed issues around body image.

As the pair had a conversation Cameron admitted that he had come into the house to “lose a bit of weight”.

Zelah, who works a professional trainer, asked if Cameron had any goals when it came to food.

Cameron responded: “Just like not eat so much crap all the time, like don’t binge as much.“

He went on to ask Zelah: “Did you used to be big?”

The personal trainer responded: “I used to be bigger, I used to be overweight.”

Zelah continued: “During my teen years, I developed an eating disorder.”

He opened up about his battle with bulimia, telling Cameron he struggled with “eating and then throwing up”.

Zelah admitted: “It stayed with me for a long time.”

Cameron responded: “At boarding school, we were made to run all the time and I was made to do rugby which I never really liked.”

He added: “I never really enjoyed, especially doing it with other people, I never really enjoyed doing all that.

“I felt embarrassed doing all that actually.”

Viewers praised Cameron for opening up about his body image struggles, particularly after he shared his fears over housemates liking him in an emotional diary room confession after entering the house.

Fans on social media admitted that the farmer has started to grow on them.

One viewer wrote on X: “Farmer O.G Cameron is really growing on me. Seems like such a nice guy. Love the way he emotionally checks in with people so effortlessly.”

Another fan said: “Farmer Cameron is a great addition to the cast i shouldnt have judged him prematurely”.

It comes as Gani became the second housemate to be given the boot from Big Brother house – after facing the first public vote of the series. 

Poor weather conditions meant ITV bosses had to pull the plug on using their outdoor set forcing this week’s evictee to leave via the back door.

Both Gani and Zelah found themselves facing the public vote after being given an evil eye by the four newest housemates – Richard, Feyisola, Cameron B and George.

Upon his departure being confirmed, he was met by Will Best, who walked him over to the Late and Live studio amid the shake-up.

When asked how he was feeling, Gani looked heartbroken as he confessed: “I seriously don’t know what to even say right now.”

During his exit interview with AJ and Will, Gani admitted he wanted to share more of himself whilst on the show.

“Is football a game or a religion?” the sports broadcaster Howard Cosell once asked with exasperation. The horror film “Him,” a striking but vacuous gridiron Grand Guignol by Justin Tipping (“Kicks”) takes it as faith that the answer is both. Any fan with a sacred good luck ritual and any player who’s thanked the man upstairs for a touchdown knows the two overlap as tightly as a freshly laced pigskin.

In the home of young elementary schooler Cameron Cade (Austin Pulliam), the fictional San Antonio Saviors quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) is the messiah. Next to the TV, there’s even a shrine with devotional portraits of their icon. When White wins a game while suffering a nasty injury, Cameron’s father seizes the moment to deliver a sermon: “That’s what real men do,” he insists. “They make sacrifices.” The candles on the altar flicker ominously.

Tipping, working from a Blacklist script by Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers with Jordan Peele as his producer, considers the sports-as-religion idea so obvious that the film doesn’t bother analyzing why it exists. Instead, “Him” wonders what kind of spiritual practice it is: hero worship or a sinister cult?

Fourteen years later, Cameron (now played by Tyriq Withers) has grown up to become a star college quarterback in line to be the NFL’s top draft pick and take over Isaiah’s position on the Saviors. A violent concussion knocks him off course, but Isaiah, a living legend still leading the team, offers to vouch for the kid if he passes a private training camp at his intimidating desert estate. It couldn’t be more obvious that Isaiah doesn’t have Cameron’s best interests at heart if he blared a warning on the Jumbotron.

The film’s title comes from a bit of braggadocio — “I’m him” — that started sprouting up in sports leagues during the last five years. (It’s why you’ll sometimes see Lakers shooting guard Austin Reaves called “AustHIM” Reaves.) Anointing someone the GOAT, as in “Greatest of All Time,” has been around longer, but the silly thing about both compliments is they’re getting handed out like Halloween candy. Whether Cameron can become the next GOAT is the movie’s main obsession. Yet it resonates, albeit vague and unexplored, with biblical references to goat offerings and images of Jesus as a sacrificial lamb and the movie’s visual allusions to the goat-headed occult idol Baphomet. Plus, it offers us in the audience the thrill of wondering if someone will get spit-roasted.

Cameron enters Isaiah’s home to discover his host surrounded by what looks like taxidermy sheep skins. Nearly all of the film takes place in his compound, a circular warren that looks like a combination of an ancient temple and the Superdome. We’re continually happy to discover all the menacing delights that production designer Jordan Ferrer has concocted. Inside, there’s unnerving minimalist furniture, dramatic saunas and ice baths and an indoor football field with a throwing machine powerful enough to knock out a tooth. Even more terrifying, there’s Isaiah’s lifestyle-influencer wife, Elsie (Julia Fox), who stomps around with a pointy shard of jade that Cameron is supposed to stick up his rear. (You know, for peak performance.) Meanwhile, outside the gates, Isaiah’s cult followers — like visibly brain-fried Marjorie (Naomi Grossman) — are furious that their champion may retire.

Like “Kicks,” Tipping’s excellent 2016 feature debut about a kid who risks his neck for a pair of Nikes, “Him” is about the bloody quest for respect. It wants to be “The Substance” with jockstraps: a Satanic-tinged, steroidal “Rosemary’s Baby.” The film is so stylishly done that I could accept it on those plain terms. Every shot is a stunner, from stark images of eerily spinning footballs to goalposts that loom like devil’s horns. Editor Taylor Joy Mason and cinematographer Kira Kelly have put together queasy-brilliant montages with some kind of an eye-popping camera technique — a mix of thermal imaging, X-ray footage and visual effects — that seems to see right inside the actors’ bodies to their gristle and goo. Bobby Krlic (a.k.a. the Haxan Cloak), who also composed the music for “Midsommar,” wows us with a tragic, thundering score.

But the movie’s thoughts about pain and devotion and locker-room manipulation are still gestating. After I made it to the end of the story and ran it back, little of the plot hung together. I couldn’t with any conviction answer rudimentary questions such as how much does Cameron even want to play football? Or what in Hades will happen to the surviving characters?

Part of the issue is that Tipping and Withers have created a rising football player who might be too authentic. Withers moves with physical confidence and perfect posture and drilled obedience. Participating in a mock media training day, you buy that he was born to sell sneakers.

He speaks with an athlete’s guardedness, too, that post-game interview cadence where each wooden sentence tries to bore the camera into leaving them alone. Cameron describes his football career clinically and neutrally like he’s a product; he refers to himself “performing,” not “playing,” as the latter would imply he’s on the field to have fun.

Surrounded by trainers and doctors and his childhood hero, he acquiesces to pretty much everything, from receiving random injections to a brutal bludgeoning. (At least he doesn’t do you-know-what with that jade crystal.) I’m willing to blame some of that passivity on his head injury, but it’s hard to care about a character who only has a personality for three minutes.

At least Wayans gets to cut loose. His bullying Isaiah sprints from pep talks to threats in the same breath and runs around in nifty outfits covered in weighted beads. He’s in such peak physical condition that you believe Isaiah’s conviction that it’s possible to outrace Father Time. Realizing afterward that Wayans is 53 — almost a decade older than Tom Brady when he retired after announcers even more bold than Cosell treated him like Methuselah — you just might be tempted to bow down to Baphomet yourself.

Great Britain took a big step towards next year’s Davis Cup qualifiers as Cameron Norrie and Arthur Fery both won to give them a 2-0 lead over Poland.

World number 34 Norrie survived a scare against world number 545 Tomasz Berkieta to win his nation’s opening World Group 1 match 7-6 (11-9) 6-4 in Gdynia, Poland.

Fery, ranked 227 in the world, then battled to a 6-4 6-2 victory over Olaf Pieczkowski, ranked 484.

The 23-year-old was making his Davis Cup debut after British number three Jacob Fearnley pulled out with a rib injury.

Britain need one more win on Saturday to reach February’s first round and therefore have a shot at winning the title in 2026.

The world’s number one doubles pair, Lloyd Glasspool and Julian Cash, will make their debut in Saturday’s doubles, which will be followed by two reverse singles.

World number seven Jack Draper was unavailable for the tie because of an arm injury which has ruled him out of the remainder of the season.

Before the match, British number two Norrie said he was “ready for anything” from seventh seed Djokovic – including seeing his opponent struggle with fitness issues before regaining his level.

However, the world number 35 was still not able to drag Djokovic into gruelling physical exchanges as he hoped.

Norrie briefly threatened to cause a shock when he moved a break up early in the third set.

But Djokovic instantly hit back – helped by his opponent hitting a double fault on break point – before regaining control with a precise serving game which Norrie largely failed to trouble.

Djokovic became the oldest man to reach US Open fourth round since Jimmy Connors, who was also aged 38, in 1991.

“I’m still trying to find my groove. Today I played the best I have so far in the tournament,” Djokovic said.

On his fitness, he added: “You have some ups and downs but you don’t want to reveal too much to your rivals. I’m as young and as strong as ever.”

“The chances are getting better as the years ago on – although not by much,” said Norrie, who is ranked 35th in the world.

“The level he brings and the competitiveness he brings is crazy. Every time I’ve played him he changes tactics and makes it difficult.

“I’m ready for anything – him playing unreal, or him not playing great and stopping the match for something, then playing good.”

Djokovic looked unsteady on his feet in humid conditions during his first-round win over Learner Tien and needed treatment for a blister on his toe.

Seventh seed Djokovic had not played for six weeks before the US Open and showed more signs of rustiness on Wednesday, dropping a set against American qualifier Zachary Svajda.

It is always dangerous to suggest Djokovic looks vulnerable, and Norrie is certainly wary.

But Norrie’s brand of tennis – trying to make things physical and drag Djokovic into an energy-sapping scrap – could be key if the former world number eight is to snap his losing streak against the Serb great.

“”I will have to beat him with physicality,” said Norrie, who showed his own survival instincts in a four-set battle against Argentina’s Francisco Comesana on Wednesday.

“I did see the blister but he’s the king of adversity. He fights and pushes through it.

“I’m not going to be a servebot and serve him off the court.”

A “nervous” Norrie was worried about being first on court at 11:00 local time and need to fuel up before playing an opponent who was ranked inside the top 20 a year ago – and against whom he had lost three of four past meetings.

Ultimately the 30-year-old did not need to be overly concerned, as Norrie was leading 7-5 6-4 when Korda, 25, ended the match early.

American Korda only returned to tour action last week following a near three-month shin stress fracture lay-off.

He called a medical timeout at the start of the second set against Norrie when he appeared to be struggling with an abdominal issue.

Although Korda persevered for the remainder of the set he was unwilling to go any further, sending Norrie through to face either Argentine Francisco Comesana or American Alex Michelsen.

Norrie, who withdrew from the 2024 US Open with an arm injury, made his debut at Flushing Meadows in 2017 but still feels the nerves in New York.

“I was very nervous for the match,” said Norrie.

“Playing a Grand Slam match at 11am and trying to get rice down at 10am is not easy!”

On Korda’s retirement, Norrie said: “I feel for Sebastian. He’s been out the whole summer, he’s an amazing talent and he’s beaten me the last few times we’ve played.

“It’s tough to see him ending like that.”

Each morning before Cameron Brink pulls on her Sparks jersey, she scans a taped-up collage in her closet. Olympic rings, a WNBA All-Star crest, snapshots with her fiancé and a scatter of Etsy trinkets crowd the board.

The canvas is a handmade constellation of who Brink is and who she longs to be. Between magazine clippings and scribbled affirmations, Brink sees both the grand arc and the small vows that tether her: to show up as a teammate, a daughter and a partner.

“You have a choice every day to have a good outlook or a bad outlook,” said Brink, the Sparks’ starting forward. “I try to choose every day to be positive.”

That choice seemed to matter most when the future felt furthest away. The practice emerged in the thick of a 13-month recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Brink — the Stanford star and Sparks No. 2 draft pick — was forced to measure life in the tiniest ticks of progress after injuring her left knee a month into the 2024 season.

Sparks teammates Cameron Brink and Dearica Hamby clap hands as they pass each other on the court during a game against the Storm in Seattle on Aug. 1.

(Soobum Im / Getty Images)

Sparks veteran Dearica Hamby recognized how rehab was grinding down the rookie. One afternoon, she invited Brink to her home, where the dining table was set with scissors, glue sticks, stacks of magazines and knickknacks.

“I’ve always been taught growing up that your mind is your biggest power,” Brink said. “So I’ve always been open to stuff like that. I heavily believe in manifesting what you want and powering a positive mindset.”

Hamby had been building vision boards for years and believed Brink could use the same practice — both as a pastime and as a mechanism to combat the doubts that surfaced during her lengthy and often lonely rehab.

“If she can visualize it, she can train her mind the opposite of her negative thoughts and feelings,” Hamby said. “When you see it, you can believe it. Your brain is constantly feeding itself. And if you have something in the back — those doubts — you need something to counter that.”

The board dearest to Brink wasn’t crowded with stats or accolades. She crafted what she calls her “wonderful life,” layering in snapshots of her fiancé, Ben Felter, and framed by symbols of family and team.

“You’re a product of your mind,” Brink said. “Everything in my life, I feel like I’ve fought and been intentional about.”

Fighting was what the year demanded. However inspiring the boards looked taped inside her closet, the reality was gradual and often merciless.

From the night she was carried off the court last June to the ovation that greeted her return in July, Brink’s progress unfolded in inches — from the day she could stand, to the day she could walk to the day she touched the hardwood again.

Sparks forward Cameron Brink, left, and guard Rae Burrell, who are injured, shout and celebrate from the bench after their team scored against the Chicago Sky on June 29.

(Jessie Alcheh / Associated Press)

“It’s been such a journey,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “Cam’s mentality was just trying not to freak out. She was really focused on not being anxious about it.”

Brink came to practice with her game on a leash, her activity hemmed in by doctors’ timelines. While teammates scrimmaged, she studied sets from the sidelines.

Roberts praised her patient attitude as “great,” a skill Brink sharpened by the ritual of opening her closet and trusting the journey.

Kim Hollingdale, the Sparks’ psychotherapist, worked closely with Brink during her recovery. While bound by confidentiality, she spoke to how manifestation tools can anchor an athlete through the mental strain of long recovery.

“Being able to stay in touch with where we’re ultimately trying to get to can help on those days when it’s feeling crappy,” Hollingdale said. “Visualization helps us be like, ‘OK, look, we’re still heading to that vision. This is part of the journey.’ It gives purpose, direction and a little hope when you’re in the mud of recovery.”

That sense of purpose, she added, is about giving the brain something familiar to return to when progress stalls — a way for the mind to rehearse what the legs can’t.

For Brink, that meant keeping her game alive in pictures she ran through her head. Putbacks in the paint became reruns in her mind, and Hollingdale said the brain scarcely knows the difference: If it sees it vividly enough, the muscles prime themselves as if the movement truly happened.

What mattered wasn’t just mechanics. Tuning out noise became essential as Brink was cleared to return as a WNBA sophomore by calendar yet a rookie by experience. What could have been crushing pressure was dimmed by the vision boards — the “mental rehearsal,” as Hollingdale labeled it.

Sparks forward Cameron Brink shoots a three-pointer against the Connecticut Sun on Aug. 7.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

“I didn’t want to focus on stat lines or accolades coming back from injury,” Brink said. “I learned the importance of enjoying being out there, controlling what I can control, always having a good attitude — that’s what I reframed my mindset to be about.”

During Brink’s return against the Las Vegas Aces on July 29, she snared an offensive rebound and splashed a three-pointer within the first minute. And since, she has posted 5.9 points and four rebounds an outing, headlined by a 14-point performance through 11 minutes against Seattle.

Hollingdale tabbed Brink’s return a rarity. She often prepares athletes to weather the gauntlet of “firsts” — the first shot that clangs, the first whistle, the first crowd cheer — without expecting much beyond survival.

But upon Brink’s return, those firsts weren’t looming unknowns. They were rehearsed memories.

“That is a testament to her being able to manage herself, her emotions and her anxiety and all the stress and pressure,” Hollingdale said. “To come out and make a meaningful difference to your team straight away speaks to the ability to stay locked in and cut out the noise.”

By refusing to sprint through recovery, Hamby said Brink insulated herself from the pressure that shadows young stars. The vision boards, Hamby added, became a tangible expression of Brink’s decision to trust herself.

“She’s done it differently,” Hamby said. “For her, it’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing. She took her time, not listening to people tell her she should have been back sooner.”

When Brink shuts the closet door and heads to Crypto.com Arena for game day, she’s already spent the morning tracing the steps of the night.

On the next blank corner of her canvas?

“Being an All-Star and going to the Olympics,” she said.

Almost hidden in a mocha pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt, and wearing those same fire-red Air Jordans from his Aug. 4 return to Los Angeles, Clippers royalty Chris Paul adorned the Sparks’ bench.

And though the 20-year veteran barely lifted a palm — leaving the cheering to his wife and daughter — Paul’s court savvy still seemed to seep across the hardwood, finding its way to the Sparks’ Kelsey Plum.

Plum, who can very well be the tale of any Sparks game, but “chooses to win,” as coach Lynne Roberts says, seemed to be scoring and assisting at will through a coast-to-coast battle against the New York Liberty, a tug-of-war that stayed taut until the rope finally slipped from the Sparks’ grasp, 105-97.

The Sparks’ stalwart finished with 26 points alongside five rebounds and five assists.

“It came down to them scoring 105 points,” Plum said, “like, 97 is a lot of points.”

Across the court, with veteran Breanna Stewart sidelined with a a right knee bone bruise, the internationally seasoned presence of Emma Meesseman assumed control to keep the Liberty’s offense in rhythm, its poise intact and restart its win streak.

Emma Meesseman, who made her Liberty debut soon after Stewart’s exit, looked nothing like someone fresh off a lengthy league layoff on Thursday. The 2019 Finals MVP returned Aug. 3 after a three-year hiatus from the WNBA — time she spent competing for Belgium — and scored a season-high 24 points with nine rebounds.

“She’s one of the best players in the world,” Roberts said, “so, there’s a lot of problems one of the best players in the world can bring you. She’s got great hands, … she’s just good. She’s so smart, skilled, big, she changes their team.”

Stewart took the hit to her knee during the last edition of the East-West rivalry on July 26. And that was also a game before Sparks sophomore star Cameron Brink returned from a 13-month-long left knee injury.

About three minutes before halftime, Brink sat on the bench while trainers wrapped her left ankle during a Sparks timeout. She never joined the team’s halftime huddle as play resumed after the break, and when she finally emerged at the 6:17 mark in the third quarter, she watched the rest of the game from her seat.

“I have not talked to the medical team yet,” Roberts said, “but yeah, she tweaked her ankle. She’s still on a minutes restriction, so the decision was made not to put her back in.”

In absence of the Sparks’ most threatening defensive presence, though, Dearica Hamby and Azurá Stevens policed the key and cleaned up under the rim to ensure the Sparks stayed close. The two combined for 38 points and 12 rebounds, but couldn’t produce the same pressure defensively.

“We’ve got to do a better job defensively,” Roberts said in reference to the Liberty’s 50% shooting from three and 55.9% from the field. “I have not lost an ounce of faith or confidence in them [the Sparks], just a tough night for us tonight.

The loudest battle, however, seemed to be the fans versus the officials.

Fans groaned and barked over whistles — and the no-calls in between — as the night wore on. Roberts shared the mood, zeroing in on referee Tyler Mirkovich during a defensive sequence late in the second quarter. She sustained dialogue through the ensuing timeout, punctuating her point with a seemingly sarcastic double thumbs-up in Mirkovich’s direction.

“I mean, I would appreciate being communicated to from an official,” Roberts said. “Nothing will piss a coach off more than not being communicated to.”

Whether the whistles were with merit, no call was going to bail the Sparks out of a 10-point ditch with 22 seconds left to play.

British number two Cameron Norrie is out of the Cincinnati Open after suffering a second-round loss to veteran Roberto Bautista Agut.

Norrie recently beat the world number 53 in four sets at Wimbledon, with his first-round win sparking a run to the quarter-finals at the All England Club.

As the 32nd seed in Ohio, Norrie had a first-round bye before meeting the 37-year-old Spaniard, but with the temperature passing 30C, he seemed to struggle in the heat on the way to a 6-4 6-3 defeat.

Norrie’s last outing came at the Canadian Open, where he was beaten by world number 99 Aleksandar Vukic in the second round.

He continued his US Open preparations in Cincinnati and Bautista Agut did well to hold his serve following three lengthy games, while breaking Norrie’s in the fourth game.

When serving at 5-2 down, Norrie was visibly drenched in sweat and changed his shirt prior to deuce before staving off two set points.

The 29-year-old then broke back to make it 5-4 – from his sixth break point – but served a double fault in the following game, allowing Bautista Agut to clinch the first set.

Norrie continued to look unwell during the second but remained competitive, saving five match points to cut his deficit to 5-3, despite serving three double faults.

But Bautista Agut, playing just his second match since Wimbledon, made no mistake on his second match point in the following game.

After Montreal, this is the second straight tournament Norrie has fallen at his first hurdle and he has lost three of his five matches since his run at SW19 was halted by world number two Carlos Alcaraz.

CALVERT CITY, Ky. — Republican Nate Morris had deftly warmed up a crowd of party faithful, gushing about President Donald Trump and recounting his own life’s journey — from hardscrabble childhood to wealthy entrepreneur — when he turned his attention to the man he wants to replace, Sen. Mitch McConnell.

That’s when things got feisty. While bashing Kentucky’s longest-serving senator at a GOP dinner on the eve of Saturday’s Fancy Farm picnic, a tradition-laden stop on the state’s political circuit, Morris was cut off in midsentence by a party activist in the crowd, who noted that McConnell isn’t seeking reelection and pointedly asked Morris: “What are you running on?”

Morris touted his hard line stance on immigration and defended Trump’s tariffs as a boon for American manufacturing. But he didn’t retreat from his harsh critique of McConnell.

“We’ve seen 40 years of doing it the same way,” Morris said. “And, yes, he’s not on the ballot, but his legacy is on the ballot. Do you want 40 more years of that? I don’t think you do.”

McConnell’s blunt-force approach used against him

The pushback from a county GOP chairman revealed the political risks of attacking the 83-year-old McConnell in the twilight of his career. Towering over Kentucky politics for decades, McConnell is regarded as the master strategist behind the GOP’s rise to power in a state long dominated by Democrats. The state Republican headquarters bears McConnell’s name. As the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, McConnell guided Republican policymaking and helped forge a conservative Supreme Court. Back home, his appropriating skills showered Kentucky with federal funding.

Now, his blunt-force style of campaigning — which undercut so many foes — is being used against him.

Morris is running against two other prominent Republicans — U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron — for McConnell’s seat. The outcome will be decided in the spring primary next year. Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.

All three Republican hopefuls lavish praise on Trump — in hopes of landing his endorsement — but also have ties to McConnell, who mentored generations of aspirational Republicans. Cameron and Barr have chided McConnell at times, but it’s been mild compared to Morris’ attacks. Morris interned for McConnell but glosses over that connection.

McConnell pushes back

At events surrounding the Fancy Farm picnic, an event long known for caustic zingers that he has always relished, McConnell showed no sign of backing down.

“Surely this isn’t true, but I’ve heard that one of the candidates running for my office wants to be different,” McConnell told a Republican crowd that included Morris at a pre-picnic breakfast in Mayfield. “Now, I’m wondering how you’d want to be different from the longest-serving Senate leader in American history. I’m wondering how you’d want to be different in supporting President Trump.”

McConnell received multiple standing ovations. Morris stayed seated.

McConnell has consistently voted for Trump’s policies more often than Kentucky’s other Republican senator, Rand Paul, according to a Congressional Quarterly voting analysis. McConnell recently supported Trump’s signature tax and spending measure. Paul opposed it, saying it would drive up debt.

Yet Morris has taken on McConnell, who has famously had an up-and-down relationship with Trump.

McConnell teamed with Trump to put conservatives on the federal bench and pass tax cuts during the president’s first term. McConnell also guided the Senate — and Trump — through two impeachment trials that ended in acquittals. But the relationship was severed after McConnell blamed Trump for “disgraceful” acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by Trump’s supporters.

McConnell endorsed Trump in 2024, but in a biography by Michael Tackett of The Associated Press, released shortly before the election, McConnell described him as “a despicable human being.”

Running against career politicians

Morris, who started a waste management technology company, says the senator has been insufficiently loyal to Trump and allowed festering issues like immigration and the national debt to grow worse during his years in Senate leadership.

Morris wants to tether his opponents to McConnell while running on anti-establishment themes that his campaign thinks will appeal to legions of Trump supporters in the Bluegrass State.

“Let’s face it, folks, career politicians have run this country off a cliff,” Morris said.

Morris’ rivals sum up the anti-McConnell attacks as an angry, backward-looking message. Cameron called it a diversionary tactic to obscure what he said is Morris’ lack of both a message and credibility as a supporter of Trump’s MAGA movement.

“He can’t talk about his actual record. So he has to choose to pick on an 83-year-old,” Cameron said.

At Fancy Farm, where candidates hurl insults at one another against a backdrop of bingo games and barbecue feasts, Morris took a swipe at McConnell’s health.

“I have a serious question: who here can honestly tell me that it’s a good thing to have a senior citizen who freezes on national television during his press conferences as our U.S. senator?” Morris said. “It seems, to me, maybe just maybe, Mitch’s time to leave the Senate was a long time ago.”

McConnell had his customary front-row seat for much of the event but wasn’t there for Morris’ remarks. He typically leaves before all the speeches are delivered and exited before his would-be successors spoke.

Living by the sword

McConnell complimented Trump in his speech, singling out Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.

“He turned Iran’s nuclear program into a pile of rocks,” McConnell, a steadfast advocate for a muscular U.S. foreign policy, said to cheers.

At the GOP dinner the night before in Calvert City, where candidates typically are more politely received, party activist Frank Amaro confronted Morris for his anti-McConnell barrage.

“He keeps bashing Mitch McConnell like he’s running against Mitch McConnell,” Amaro, a county Republican chairman, said afterward. “Overall, he’s helped Kentucky and the United States, especially our Supreme Court, more than any other U.S. senator in this country.”

But Morris’ blistering assessment of McConnell hit the mark with Trump supporter Patrick Marion, who applied the dreaded Republican-in-Name-Only label to McConnell.

“Personally, I think Mitch has been a RINO for way too long,” Marion said later. “I don’t think he was a true MAGA supporter of President Trump.”

Afterward, Morris was in no mood to back off.

“He’s the nastiest politician maybe in the history of this state if not in the history of this country,” Morris said of McConnell. “Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

Schreiner writes for the Associated Press.

Thirteen months after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament, Sparks forward Cameron Brink made her season debut, stepping onto the court at the 2:39 mark of the first quarter.

Brink looked comfortable despite the long layoff, jumping into the midseason contest intensity with confidence. She was active and competitive throughout, playing 13 minutes and 55 seconds during her return.

“We’re thrilled to have her back, and I’m incredibly proud of her,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “She’s on a minutes restriction. … I told her that she needs to enjoy the moment. … It’s a hard injury to come back from mentally and physically, and she’s done it with a smile on her face.”

But the night marked the end of the WNBA’s longest active winning streak, as the Sparks fell 89-74 to the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.

The Sparks (11‑15) trailed by double digits for most of the game and couldn’t recover against the surging Aces (14‑13), who extended their lead to as much as 21 points.

In the third matchup between the two teams this season, the Sparks came out a bit hesitant, while the Aces were the aggressors from the tip.

“That was the worst shooting we’ve had all season,” Roberts said. “We’ve got to be able to defend. It’s knowing personnel, it’s knowing tendency, it’s staying locked into the game plan even when they score the first eight points.”

The Aces leaned on strong starts from Jackie Young and A’ja Wilson, who combined for 34 points in the first half.

Wilson finished with 34 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, while Young recorded a triple-double with 18 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.

Dearica Hamby remained a bright spot for the Sparks, contributing 15 points and six rebounds. Hamby was named WNBA Western Conference player of the week after leading the Sparks to three wins, including a road victory over the defending champion New York Liberty on Saturday.

Kelsey Plum added 22 points, five rebounds and eight assists in the loss. Brink had five points, including a three-pointer, three rebounds, one block and one steal in 14 minutes of play.

“I was really proud of her,” Plum said of Brink. “I told her after the game, ‘It’s very impressive to come in, make the impact that you did.’ … I think she’s gonna continue to just help us a ton.”

The Sparks, who had been rolling offensively, were startled by their difficulty scoring.

“We have been so used to making shots and so I think it caught us off guard a little bit,” Roberts said.

The Sparks will look to regroup before playing the Storm in Seattle Friday night.

“I never really thought I’d be that emotional about it. I wasn’t going to let it get away from me today.”

Young, who led by five shots after the third round, bogeyed the opening hole but birdied the next five and could afford to drop shots on the 16th and 17th.

He is the 1,000th winner on the PGA Tour.

Young said he would “love the chance to play” in the Ryder Cup against Europe in New York in September.

“That team is the goal for many of us,” he said.

The Wyndham Championship is the final tournament of the PGA Tour’s regular season.

The top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings qualify for the opening play-off event, the St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, starting on Thursday. German Matti Schmid claimed the last spot.

Britain’s Emma Raducanu is through to the quarter-finals of the women’s singles at the Washington Open after beating four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka in straight sets.

After previously upsetting Ukrainian seventh seed Marta Kostyuk in round one, the 22-year-old produced a dominant performance to overcome former world number one Osaka 6-4 6-2.

The 2021 US Open women’s singles champion will face wildcard Maria Sakkari in the last eight after the Greek player knocked out American second seed Emma Navarro.

Raducanu, who will replace Katie Boulter as British number one when the WTA rankings are updated on Monday, is also through to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles.

She and partner Elena Rybakina overcame Giuliana Olmos and Aldila Sutjiadi 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 to set up a last-four meeting with second seeds Shuai Zhang and Taylor Townsend.

However, in the men’s singles, Britons Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans were eliminated in the last 16.

British number two Norrie lost to 14th seed Brandon Nakashima 7-6 (7-3) 6-3.

After a tight first set was decided by a tie-break, American Nakashima twice broke Norrie’s serve in the second to reach the quarter-finals.

Evans, who won the tournament in 2023, fought back from 5-3 down and saved a match point to force a tie-break in the second set against Corentin Moutet but the Frenchman prevailed in straight sets, winning 6-2 7-6 (7-4).