分类： sports

Australian professional tennis player Bernard Tomic, long known for his turbulent on and off-court reputation, has sent shockwaves through his fanbase with a sudden, unexpected announcement: he and long-term partner Keely Hannah have welcomed their first child together, a baby girl named Astara Aurelia Tomic.

The newborn arrived on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026, but the couple managed to keep the entire pregnancy and birth completely hidden from the public eye, maintaining a complete radio silence across their social media channels in the months leading up to the reveal. Hannah, Tomic’s partner since 2022, broke the quiet on Sunday, sharing a carousel of tender photos of baby Astara to her Instagram account alongside the caption: “The most beautiful secret we’ve ever kept.”

A closer look at Hannah’s social media history confirms how successfully the couple concealed their exciting news: she has not shared any public posts to her account since July of the previous year, letting followers remain completely unaware of her pregnancy.

The surprise arrival marks a new chapter for Tomic, a player who has long been no stranger to off-court controversy alongside his on-court pursuits. The former world No. 17 has weathered public scrutiny of his relationship with Hannah before: during a 2024 ATP Challenger tournament, Tomic made headlines when he retired mid-match after a heated public argument with Hannah that was caught on live tournament broadcast.

Today, Tomic continues his comeback push on the ATP Challenger Tour, currently holding the world No. 191 ranking as he fights to climb back into the men’s top 100 and earn a return to the upper echelons of professional tennis.

The Manly Sea Eagles are heading into Thursday’s away clash against the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville with renewed momentum, as the club’s stunning recent form has drawn comparisons to their memorable 2021 comeback season. At the center of pre-match speculation is veteran forward Jake Trbojevic, who is on track to be named in the matchday squad despite sustaining a grueling eye injury during last weekend’s victory over the St. George Illawarra Dragons.

Trbojevic was forced to exit the Dragons win early after a hard tackle left him with a deep cut below his right eye, which swelled so severely that the eye closed completely completely. While initial medical checks ruled out any concussion — a key concern given Trbojevic’s history of head impacts — he was unable to rejoin the game due to impaired vision. Posts from rugby league medical observers on social media shortly after the incident raised questions about a possible eye socket fracture, leaving Sea Eagles fans waiting anxiously for updates on his condition.

The star forward skipped all contact drills at Monday’s training session at the NSWRL Centre of Excellence in Sydney’s Olympic Park, but his presence on the training ground remained critical. Trbojevic stayed on the field to lead warm-ups, walk through tactical drills, and direct younger teammates, signaling his preparation to suit up for the Townsville match. When asked about his availability, Trbojevic confirmed to teammates he intends to play, a commitment his front row partner Taniela Paseka says he fully trusts.

“He’s told me he’s in, so I’m going to go off that because whatever he says usually happens,” Paseka told NewsWire. “It’s going to be very important to have him in our team this week against a big, physical forward pack like the Cowboys.”

Beyond his on-field contributions, Paseka says Trbojevic’s natural leadership and tactical eye suggest a successful second career as a coach once he retires from playing. “I reckon he’ll definitely be a coach, and I keep telling him that. I think he’s very good at explaining the game, so I told him ‘Mate, you should be a coach.’ Maybe not a head coach straight away because it’s too big of a job, but he would be an excellent forwards coach focusing on one area of the game. He’s actually thinking about it, and he’s admitted the idea appeals to him.”

Trbojevic’s expected return is just the latest bright spot for a Sea Eagles side that has undergone a dramatic transformation since a disastrous 0-3 start to the 2026 season. That poor opening stretch cost head coach Anthony Seibold his job, with former Manly playmaker Kieran Foran stepping into the interim head coach role. The shift has already delivered staggering results: Manly has put up 80 points across Foran’s first two games in charge, a far cry from the lackluster performance that saw them booed off their home ground by angry fans in round four.

Paseka attributes the sudden turnaround to growing on-field cohesion after the squad’s major mid-season shakeup. “It took a while for us to get it right with the chemistry and the combinations,” he explained. “Now that we’ve played a few games together, we’ve figured out what’s working for us and what isn’t. We doubled down on the strategies that fit this group, and that’s paid off over the last two weeks. We’re just building on that week after week.”

Even with two straight wins under their belt, Paseka says the squad is remaining grounded, taking each match as it comes rather than getting ahead of themselves. “I think the sky’s the limit for this group. As more key players come back from injury, we’ll only get stronger. We’re just trying every week to be present, take it week by week and not look too far ahead. We’re winning at the moment, but we’re still very grounded, if that makes sense, because you don’t want to get ahead of yourself.”

For long-time Sea Eagles supporters, the current run of form is already bringing back echoes of 2021, a season that saw Manly start with four straight losses before storming through the back half of the year to reach the NRL preliminary final. That turnaround was fueled by superstar fullback Tom Trbojevic – Jake’s brother – who missed the opening of that season before producing one of the most dominant attacking individual campaigns in modern NRL history. Today, Tom “Turbo” Trbojevic is back in top form heading into Thursday’s trip to north Queensland, a parallel Paseka doesn’t deny.

“I do see similarities to 2021. But like I said, I don’t want to look too far ahead because you’ve got to be present,” Paseka said. “But for sure, that was a great year for us and for Turbo as well. Right now, Turbo’s playing great footy, and that’s a huge boost for all of us.”

Nineteen-year-old rugby league prodigy Cooper Bai has opened up about the agonizing choice that saw him walk away from a pre-agreed move to the Melbourne Storm to re-sign with the Gold Coast Titans, a decision that already appears vindicated after his standout performance in Sunday’s dominant 50-point win over the Parramatta Eels.

Still only seven games into his senior NRL career, Bai already displays the physical tools and mental maturity of a veteran front-rower, and has emerged as one of the Titans’ most critical long-term building blocks under new head coach Josh Hannay. The teen talent confirms that backing out of his earlier agreement to join Melbourne was the hardest call he has ever had to make, one that pitted his childhood home against a storied franchise with deep family connections.

Bai’s father Marcus is a club legend of the Storm from their early championship-winning years, and top club figures including legendary head coach Craig Bellamy and football director Frank Ponissi held extensive talks with the young forward to convince him to make the move south to Victoria. “Those conversations were really helpful to get a different perspective on how other clubs operate,” Bai explained. “But at the end of the day, this is where I’ve grown up my whole life, this is all I’ve ever known. I had to make the choice that felt right for me, and that was staying here with the new coaching group that’s building something new.”

While Bellamy’s decades of sustained success at Storm made the opportunity to learn from one of the game’s greatest coaches incredibly tempting, Bai says Hannay’s fresh approach and personal mentorship have been transformative for his early career. Under Hannay’s leadership, the Titans have overhauled their defensive structure and clicked into attacking form, notching only the second 50-point game in franchise history against the Eels.

“Hannay has honestly been a game-changer for me,” Bai said. “He’s drilled me on the core basics of my position, helped me get my mindset right for the physical grind of the NRL, and taught me to start strong from the first minute instead of playing catch-up. As a young middle forward, there’s a lot of external noise, but he’s helped me stay focused on my role and keep improving every week.”

Sunday’s blowout win has already validated the call for Bai and captain Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, both of whom committed long-term to the rebuilding Titans. “It silences a lot of that off-field noise,” Bai said. “We got to show our home fans what this new Titans brand is all about. We’re not just here to play flashy footy – we’re putting in the hard work to change the culture around this club. I never doubted that staying was the right call. I loved training every day with this group, and I didn’t want to look back and wonder what if I left. I’m young, there will be more choices down the line, but right now this is where I want to be.”

Looking ahead, the newly approved 2028 entry of Papua New Guinea’s NRL franchise – widely nicknamed the PNG Chiefs – is set to trigger intense pursuit of Bai, who already has two Test caps for PNG and earned hero status among local fans when he featured off the bench in last year’s Prime Minister’s XIII match. Bai says he has no plans to think about future moves for now, but made clear he holds the PNG rugby league community close to his heart.

“The love and support I get from everyone in PNG is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” Bai said with a smile. “It’s such an honor to play for them there. Right now, though, I’m just focused on my time here with the Titans. If opportunities come up later, they come up, but my focus is here right now.”

Liverpool Football Club enters one of the most pivotal nights in its recent history this Tuesday, tasked with a seemingly insurmountable mission to overturn a 2-0 first-leg deficit against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-finals – a result that could not only rescue a deeply underwhelming season but also decide the future of manager Arne Slot.

Just 12 months after lifting the Premier League title, the Reds have endured a turbulent 2024-25 campaign. Currently sitting fifth in the top-flight table, the club was eliminated early from both the FA Cup and EFL Cup, leaving the continent’s premier club competition as their only remaining path to silverware this term. Their challenge became far steeper after a dominant PSG side outclassed them in the French capital two weeks ago, but wasteful finishing from the Parisians kept Liverpool in the tie, setting the stage for a potential iconic night at Anfield.

As one of European football’s most successful clubs with six Champions League crowns to their name, Liverpool has a storied history of pulling off miraculous come-from-behind wins on their home ground. The most famous of these recent examples came in 2019, when current captain Virgil van Dijk was part of the side that erased a 3-0 first-leg deficit to beat Lionel Messi’s Barcelona 4-0 at Anfield, a result that propelled the club to its sixth European title under then-manager Jurgen Klopp.

That legendary night stands as the high water mark of Klopp’s trophy-laden reign, which included three Champions League finals in five seasons. But for the core group of players who featured in that iconic run, Tuesday’s clash could be their final Champions League chapter at Anfield bar a stunning turnaround. Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson have already confirmed they will depart the club at the end of the season, while Van Dijk and Alisson Becker face an uncertain future, with no guarantee Liverpool will even qualify for next season’s tournament despite five English spots being on offer this cycle.

For Slot, the pressure could not be higher. The Dutch manager is in the final stretch of his second season at the helm, and his position has been in serious doubt after a string of underwhelming results. Following a humiliating 4-0 FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Manchester City last month, Liverpool supporters chanted the name of Xabi Alonso, the club’s former midfield icon and the overwhelming favorite to take the job should Slot be sacked at the end of the campaign, who left his role at Real Madrid earlier this year.

A much-needed 2-0 victory over Fulham at the weekend has given Slot and his squad a boost, snapping a three-game losing streak and extending their advantage over the sides chasing Champions League qualification spots in the Premier League. In the aftermath of that win, Slot issued a public rallying cry to Anfield supporters, urging them to recreate the iconic atmosphere that has lifted the club through past crises.

“This was a massive win not only for the league but looking forward to Tuesday,” Slot told reporters. “Not only for the players but also for the fans. After a 4-0 loss and a 2-0 loss everybody could do with this win. One thing is clear is that on Tuesday we need our fans. There were fans in Paris but we had a very hard time. Anfield has shown many times that it can lift the team to another level and we need that again. Half an hour before the game the players need that support and need to feel it is going to be another special evening.”

Van Dijk echoed that sentiment, drawing on his experience of the 2019 Barcelona comeback to inspire his teammates. “It’s down to us to be in the best shape possible to make a special evening on Tuesday,” the captain said. “We are at home and we have to show belief that we can do it. It needs a special performance but I’m lucky I have been part of special performances so I will try and bring that across for the team.”

Even beyond the tie, a second humiliating defeat in as many weeks on home soil would deal a further blow to Slot’s standing with supporters. Another underperformance matching the debacles in Manchester and Paris could prove to be the final straw for the fanbase, putting even more pressure on the club’s hierarchy to make a change at the end of the season.

As the 2026 AFL season gets underway, Collingwood Magpies star and reigning best-and-fairest winner Darcy Cameron has pushed back hard against growing fan and analyst speculation that the club’s veteran-heavy playing list is the root cause of its underwhelming opening stretch.

Through the first five rounds of the new campaign, the Pies have only secured two wins, dropping three consecutive matches to premiership contenders Adelaide, the Brisbane Lions, and Fremantle. This underperformance has reignited long-simmering questions about Collingwood’s list composition, with critics arguing the club overrelies on young star Nick Daicos and 400-game veteran Scott Pendlebury, warning that an ‘age cliff’ is imminent for the side that reached two preliminary finals and one grand final over the past four seasons.

Cameron, however, has labelled these concerns nonsensical. He pointed to Collingwood’s sustained on-field success over the previous four years as evidence that the current group of players remains competitive, even with the advancing age of several key leaders. “I know those guys are getting a little bit older but they’re still performing at a really high level,” Cameron told reporters, doubling down that the narrative of an impending age-related collapse is unfounded.

Instead of focusing on age, Cameron shifted the conversation to the Pies’ well-documented attacking struggles, particularly in the inside 50, which he identified as the far more pressing issue for the club to address. The Magpies controlled the inside 50 count in their recent loss to Fremantle, but failed to convert that territory into meaningful scoreboard damage. Outside of a win over GWS where coach Craig McRae adjusted the side’s attacking structure, Collingwood has only posted low totals of 78, 79, 65 and 39 points in its other four 2026 outings, leaving the forward line starved of quality scoring opportunities.

Cameron said the root of the problem lies with the midfield’s ball movement, not the forward group’s ability to convert. The ruckman acknowledged that midfielders, including himself, too often fell into predictable attacking patterns against Fremantle, which flooded extra defenders behind the ball to clog the Collingwood forward 50. “We probably missed a few opportunities in the first half to lower our eyes and not be so predictable,” Cameron explained. “Freo flood a lot of numbers back and we probably played into their hands at times. We just need to create more opportunities to link up with our forwards. We will go back and look at the vision and fix this moving forward.”

Against a backdrop of early-season struggles that have left many questioning Carlton’s 2026 premiership hopes, captain Patrick Cripps is holding firm to his belief that the club is still on track to compete for Australian Football League’s ultimate prize, despite a disappointing 1-4 record through the first five rounds.

The 31-year-old skipper, now competing in his 13th professional season, has not written off his chance to lift the club’s long-elusive premiership trophy this year. For Cripps, the slow start is far from a final verdict on what the evolving Blues squad can achieve in the coming months.

With a high-stakes clash against longtime archrival Collingwood scheduled for Thursday night, Cripps argues it is far too early to count his side out of contention. A win against the Pies, he insists, could provide exactly the momentum shift Carlton needs to turn its season around.

“Competing for a premiership is still what drives me. Any player in the back half of their career plays for that one goal above everything else,” Cripps told reporters ahead of the Collingwood game. “What I and a lot of us learned last season is that when you fixate too much on the end prize, you lose the joy of putting in the work week after week. That ultimate goal will always be there for as long as I keep playing, but I still love this game – I love training, I love competing against the best.”

Cripps highlighted that while the early results have not gone Carlton’s way, the internal culture and training intensity at the club remain as strong as he has ever experienced in his tenure. “My focus lately has been on leading this group day in and day out. We’ve carried great energy through the first weeks of the season, and that’s one thing we’ve really nailed this year. The start has obviously been challenging, and we haven’t gotten the wins we wanted, but the energy around the club and the standard of our training is higher than I’ve ever felt it. Even when results aren’t going your way, I still love showing up to the club every day – that’s always the biggest test. It’s still early, there’s so much untapped potential in this group, and we can’t wait to get out there on Thursday and kick this campaign into gear.”

Carlton turned in an improved performance against Adelaide last week, fixing the second-half slumps that had plagued earlier outings, but still walked away empty-handed without the four competition points. That result followed a controversial call from head coach Michael Voss to drop George Hewett, the club’s reigning best and fairest winner, a decision that sent shockwaves through the competition.

Cripps acknowledged that the cutting of a popular, experienced teammate like Hewett serves as a wake-up call for every player in the Carlton squad. “It’s always tough losing George – he’s someone I love playing alongside, we’ve shared the field for four years now, every player at the club loves having him around, you always know what you’re going to get from him,” Cripps said. “But at the same time, when results aren’t going your way, you have to be willing to shake up the combination to get things back on track. The way George has handled this, showing up and putting in the work this week, that’s a credit to his character. He puts in more effort than anyone I’ve ever seen at this club, and I’m proud to call him a teammate.”

The National Rugby League (NRL) off-season transfer market has already begun to heat up, with two high-profile forward movements emerging as the 2025 season approaches its midpoint. The Newcastle Knights have pulled off a major long-term recruitment coup, locking in Warriors enforcer Marata Niukore on a three-year contract that will see the 29-year-old move to Newcastle starting in 2027.

Niukore’s rugby league career began in Australia with the Parramatta Eels, where he spent the first five seasons of his top-flight career before making the move to the New Zealand Warriors four years ago. He comes to the Knights off one of his strongest recent performances, having scored a try in the Warriors’ historic drought-breaking victory over the reigning-premier Melbourne Storm last week.

Despite still being in the prime of his career at 29, Niukore opted to make the move to Newcastle after facing a growing logjam of young elite talent in the Warriors’ forward pack. With the New Zealand side boasting one of the most promising youth development systems in the NRL, opportunities for senior players in the coming seasons were projected to become increasingly limited, opening the door for Niukore to seek a fresh start down under.

Knights’ head of recruitment Peter O’Sullivan expressed strong enthusiasm for the signing, noting Niukore’s rare versatility and on-field impact that will add major depth to the club’s future squad. “He is a big athletic body, who can play in the middle or on the edge, with the same level of execution,” O’Sullivan said in a statement confirming the deal. “Marata is one of the top edge defenders in the game and having played a lot of NRL in the centres, he adds genuine skill and versatility to our future stocks. Equally importantly, we know he is a great person, who cares about the club, the community and the teammates he represents, already committing to leaving the jersey in a better position than how he receives it.”

The Knights have built a strong track record of shrewd recruitment in recent seasons: former Canberra Raiders forward Trey Mooney has thrived since making the switch to Newcastle, while five-eighth Dylan Brown was in elite form before a season-ending knee injury cut his 2025 campaign short.

Meanwhile, across the NRL, the St George Illawarra Dragons have confirmed that representative forward Jaydn Su’A will depart the club at the end of the 2025 season. In a statement confirming Su’A’s exit, Dragons chief executive Tim Watsford paid tribute to the forward’s contributions during his tenure with the club. “Jaydn has been an important part of our squad and has made a valued contribution to the club during his time in the Red V,” Watsford said. “We thank Jaydn for his contribution to the Dragons and wish him and his family all the best for the future.”

The former State of Origin forward has quickly emerged as a top target for the Parramatta Eels, who are currently grappling with a worsening injury crisis that has gutted their forward pack. The club has not ruled out pushing for an early mid-season transfer to bring Su’A to the club immediately, rather than waiting for the end of the season. When asked about a potential move, Eels head coach Jason Ryles confirmed the club was exploring all options to reinforce their injury-hit squad. “We do have the ability to do that (sign players now) but that’s something that we’ll have to look at with our recruitment team during the week and the weeks coming,” Ryles said.