分类： sports

In a historic display of teenage tennis talent at Roland Garros, 19-year-old Russian rising star Mirra Andreeva captured her maiden Grand Slam title on Saturday, outclassing Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska in a straight-sets 6-3, 6-2 victory in the women’s singles final.

Andreeva’s breakthrough win carries landmark significance beyond her first major crown. She becomes the youngest women’s singles champion at the French Open since 18-year-old Monica Seles claimed her third consecutive Paris title back in 1992, and also makes history as the first player of any gender born after 2005 to lift a Grand Slam trophy. The Coupe Suzanne Lenglen will now take pride of place in Andreeva’s fast-growing collection of silverware, which already includes two WTA 1000 titles earned earlier in her young career.

For Chwalinska, the run to the final capped a truly astonishing underdog journey through the tournament. Starting her campaign in the qualifying draw, the world No. 114 won nine consecutive matches in Paris to become the first qualifier ever to reach the French Open women’s singles final in the Open era. While she fell just short of a fairy tale title, her remarkable run will catapult her to a career-high ranking of No. 21, guaranteeing her direct entry and regular competition in the sport’s biggest major events moving forward.

The final unfolded with early tension amplified by blustery conditions on Philippe Chatrier Court, which threw off both players’ rhythm from the opening points. Chwalinska showed immediate nerves, dumping two opening serves into the net, and Andreeva survived a seven-minute opening game to secure the first break of serve. But the Pole responded instantly, breaking back when Andreeva overhit a backhand down the line after a prolonged rally of looping defensive exchanges.

Blustery winds that sent spectators’ straw hats flying off the stands contributed to two more consecutive breaks, leaving both players still searching for their footing. Chwalinska was the first to settle, holding serve to love and winning over the Paris crowd with a spectacular display of shot variety: a deft drop shot drew Andreeva to the net, before she pulled off a perfectly weighted lob to take a 3-2 lead.

But Andreeva showed the poise of a veteran far beyond her years. She fought through her first service hold of the match, closing the game out with a blistering winner up the line followed by an unreturnable ace. From that point, the 19-year-old seized control of the match. She pounced on a Chwalinska service game heavily disrupted by the wind to re-take the lead, held comfortably, then broke the Pole once more with a clinical crosscourt backhand winner to close out the first set.

Andreeva carried her momentum into the second set, jumping out to an early lead as Chwalinska’s error count climbed. Though the Polish underdog pulled one break back to briefly threaten a comeback, Andreeva displayed immense mental toughness to hold serve and move ahead 3-0, putting Chwalinska firmly on the back foot. Andreeva won the next two games to move within one game of the title, but Chwalinska refused to capitulate, holding serve to make it 5-1 and breaking Andreeva when the teen served for the championship.

That small comeback was not enough to derail Andreeva’s historic run. She broke straight back in the next game, sealing the title with a decisive backhand winner before collapsing to her knees in celebration. The win also sees her surpass the achievement of her own coach, Conchita Martinez, who finished as Roland Garros runner-up back in 2000. The victory lifts Andreeva to a new career-high ranking of world No. 6, announcing her as one of the leading new forces in women’s tennis.

A bitter diplomatic row has erupted between Iran and the United States just days before the kickoff of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada, after Washington denied entry visas to a large contingent of key support staff for Iran’s national football squad. The dispute broke into the open Saturday as Iran’s first-team players prepared to depart their weeks-long training camp in the Turkish coastal resort of Antalya for a pre-tournament base in Mexico.

On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack took to social media platform X to announce that all members of Iran’s national team had received their travel visas, praising the U.S. Embassy in Ankara for its efficient processing work. But Iran’s Embassy in Ankara issued a sharp, immediate rebuke the following day, contradicting Barrack’s account and accusing Washington of deliberate, discriminatory targeting of the national squad.

“Why do you not say that visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others who are an integral part of any national football team?” the Iranian mission wrote in its public X post. The statement added that the U.S. had “escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level.”

According to Iranian domestic news outlets and leading Iranian sports outlet Verzesh3, the visa rejections include high-profile figures such as Mehdi Taj, the president of the Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran, alongside multiple executive committee members and team analysts.

Tensions between the two nations have remained dangerously elevated since a joint U.S.-Israeli military bombing campaign against Iranian targets began in late February, which erupted into open hostilities. A fragile ceasefire agreed on April 8 has steadily unraveled in recent weeks, with both sides resuming offensive strikes and exchanging escalating threats.

Despite the diplomatic fallout from the visa dispute, Iran’s senior players have proceeded with their planned travel itinerary. Team Melli’s chartered flight departed Antalya at 15:20 local time (1220 GMT) Saturday, with a scheduled stopover in Spain en route to Mexico. The squad is expected to touch down in Mexico at 01:30 local time (0730 GMT) on Sunday.

Unlike the original plan that would have placed the team’s pre- and in-tournament training base on U.S. soil, Iran relocated its camp to the Mexican border city of Tijuana months ago, a change made in direct response to heightened geopolitical tensions between the two nations stemming from the ongoing conflict. Even with the team based in Mexico, all three of Iran’s Group G group-stage matches will take place across the U.S. border.

Iran is scheduled to kick off its World Cup campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on June 15, followed by a second group match against Belgium in the same city six days later. The squad will wrap up group play against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle.

In the lead-up to the tournament, Iran held two warm-up friendlies at their Antalya training camp: a 3-1 victory over Gambia on May 29, and a 2-0 shutout win against Mali in their final preparation match on Thursday.

The Melbourne Storm have delivered a critical update on the recovery journeys of two key first-team players, forward Eli Katoa and veteran Tui Kamikamica, both sidelined by serious, career-threatening health incidents in recent months. For 26-year-old Katoa, a two-time Dally M Second-Rower of the Year, the club has confirmed he will not take the field at all during the 2026 NRL season, as he continues to work with a team of specialists and neurosurgeons to map out a potential long-term return to contact rugby league.

Katoa’s health crisis dates back to a November 2025 Test match for Tonga against New Zealand, where he sustained multiple traumatic head impacts. A heavy collision before the match already should have ruled him out of action, but the star forward was permitted to play, and suffered two additional blows to the head that left him with life-threatening brain bleeding requiring emergency surgery. He has not played a professional match since that day.

In the months following his emergency surgery, Katoa has progressed to taking part in low-intensity, non-contact training drills, and remains a constant presence around the club daily. Still, club leadership confirmed that his recovery is moving slower than hoped, and any return to contact training — the first required step to a full playing comeback — remains uncertain. The earliest possible return fans could see Katoa back on the field would be the 2027 NRL season, and that outcome is still far from guaranteed.

“Eli won’t play this year,” Melbourne Storm chief executive Justin Rodski confirmed to NewsWire. “He’s still going through his recovery process and continuing to try to build up through a training point of view, but it’s all non-contact. He’ll continue to work with his specialists and neurosurgeons around a plan for phasing him back into more and more training. In terms of when that is and whether or not that includes contact training in the near future, we simply do not know so we just have to be patient and continue to listen to the medical experts.”

Rodski emphasized that the club is prioritizing Katoa’s long-term health over a rushed return to the field, noting the star’s unwavering drive to get back to playing. “Eli is so keen to get back out there and play. He’s at training and the club every day, but we can’t rush his return and we need to ensure that we’ve done everything right and followed the medical process,” Rodski said. “I think over the coming months we’ll start to get a clearer picture on what that could look like, and hopefully there is a path to return to some contact training at some point down the track. But at this stage we’re still waiting to get that confirmation.”

The club has rallied around Katoa as he navigates an uncertain recovery, Rodski added. “We’ve been getting around him and giving him all the support he needs because it’s hard for any player being on the sidelines. For Eli, having the uncertainty on what that actually looks like makes it even more difficult. We couldn’t have more respect for a person because he’s such a wonderful leader in the organisation. We’ve missed him on the field, but it’s been great to have him around off the field. We’re all hopeful that we get some positive news over the coming months that there’s a plan for his return.”

The Katoa announcement comes just after the Storm confirmed another devastating season-ending injury: representative winger Xavier Coates suffered a full Achilles rupture during a training session that will rule him out of all 2026 matches.

For Kamikamica, the club’s other sidelined forward, there is more cautious optimism for a 2026 return. The veteran forward suffered a stroke after the Storm’s round four loss to the North Queensland Cowboys earlier this season, and has since resumed full training as he works toward clearance from medical experts.

“Tui is so keen to get back out there, but we’re waiting on further medical advice to give him the all clear,” Rodski said. “He’s back into training, he’s around the club, he’s energetic and passionate as ever to return, but he’s gone through a serious ordeal so we need to make sure that we’ve done everything right to tick every box from a medical point of view to clear him to be able to play again this season. Unfortunately, we don’t know when that might be, and he’s still going through some testing. Until we’ve got that medical approval and clearance, he’s just going to continue to train and be around the club.”

The 2025 French Open men’s singles final is set, after two dramatic days of semi-final action that saw a veteran chasing a long-awaited milestone and an Italian rising star advance under unexpected circumstances. Germany’s Alexander Zverev, the tournament’s second seed and world number three, fought past 20-year-old Czech rookie Jakub Mensik in a four-set thriller on Friday to book his spot in Sunday’s championship match, where he will face Italy’s Flavio Cobolli. For Zverev, the match marks his fourth appearance in a Grand Slam final, and a chance to claim the first major title of his decorated career.

Zverev’s path to the final required every bit of his 11 years of Grand Slam experience against Mensik, who was competing in his first ever major semi-final. The young Czech had already fought through two draining five-set matches to reach the last four, and fatigue gradually took its toll over the course of the two-and-a-half-hour contest. Zverev struck first, breaking Mensik’s serve in the 11th game of a tight opening set after saving three break points that would have put the 26th seed up 5-3. The German dominated the second set, dropping only four points on his own serve and breaking Mensik twice to take a two-set lead.

Mensik briefly turned the tide after calling a medical time-out early in the third set for a nagging neck injury. His improved use of drop shots caught Zverev off guard, and he broke to take a 4-2 lead before closing out the set 6-3 — the only second set Zverev has dropped through the entire tournament. But the young Czech could not maintain his momentum. Unforced backhand errors gifted Zverev an early break in the fourth set, putting him up 2-0, and the veteran never looked back. Zverev closed out the 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win on his first match point when Mensik sent a backhand into the net. Along the way, Zverev drew some criticism from spectators for disputing two line calls and received a time violation warning, but his ability to navigate through physical and mental pressure has kept his title dream alive.

In the other semi-final, 10th seed Cobolli did not even take the court, after his compatriot and childhood friend Matteo Arnaldi withdrew just one hour before the match due to a sudden viral illness. Arnaldi, ranked 104th in the world, had pulled off a Cinderella run to the semi-finals, winning two back-to-back marathon matches in the third and fourth rounds before his quarter-final opponent Matteo Berrettini retired due to injury. Arnaldi said that despite feeling good through most of the tournament, he woke up suffering from dizziness and decided a withdrawal was the only responsible decision.

“It’s tough — for how the tournament was, for how many hours I spent on court, I felt pretty good,” Arnaldi told reporters. “Every time I get up I feel dizzy and not the best… so that was the right decision for me.”

Cobolli, who advanced to his first ever Grand Slam final via walkover, shared his disappointment for his friend and compatriot. “It’s tough for me to speak also. When he came to me an hour ago I almost cried,” he said. “At the same time I’m happy with the result this week.” Cobolli has been one of the tournament’s most impressive performers, dropping just two sets through five matches, including a standout quarter-final win over fourth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada.

For Zverev, Sunday’s final will be the culmination of years of near-misses at the sport’s biggest events. He has fallen short in three previous Grand Slam finals, most recently losing to Carlos Alcaraz at the 2023 French Open, and held a two-set lead over Dominic Thiem in the 2020 US Open final before collapsing in five sets. He also entered the French Open in the middle of a 14-month title drought, dating back to his win at a small clay-court event in Munich in April 2024. With tournament favorites Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner exiting early in the second and third rounds respectively, Zverev has handled the pressure of being the top remaining seed well, losing only two sets across six matches to reach the final. He also holds a 3-1 career winning record against Cobolli, making him the clear favorite to lift the trophy on Philippe Chatrier Court.

After reaching the final, the 29-year-old reflected on his journey to the championship match, leaning into his lighthearted approach to pressure. “This is a Grand Slam, it’s best of five, things are going to happen, opponents are going to play better. I managed it,” Zverev said. “Pure emptiness, there’s absolutely nothing in my head. We’re athletes, very few of us have anything in our heads. Sometimes it’s easier to be stupid and not to think too much. I hope to play another great match on Sunday.”