Defending champion Judd Trump beat John Higgins 5-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Wuhan Open – despite taking another player’s cue into the arena after the mid-session interval.

Leading 3-1, Trump alerted the referee as he was about to break off for the fifth frame and told Higgins that he had inadvertently picked up the wrong cue.

“My cue was in the case I think, but Ben [Woollaston] put his cue next to my case,” Trump said to the Scot as he was reunited with his own cue, with Higgins seeing the funny side of the mix-up.

World number one Trump went on to win the fifth frame to go 4-1 up and, although four-time world champion Higgins responded with a break of 126, Trump wrapped up victory to set up a meeting with either fellow Englishman Chris Wakelin, who made successive century breaks of 128, 139 and 132 to beat home favourite Ding Junhui 5-3

In an interview with the World Snooker Tour, 35-year-old Trump added: “I have never done that before. It was a bit of a shock.

“It wasn’t until I really got to the table that I noticed. I was going to break off and the cue felt strange, so I looked down and it wasn’t my cue.

“Luckily for me John was very nice about it and he just told me to wait as long as possible.

“I think it has happened before and someone got awarded the frame, but John was nice enough just to allow me enough time to get my cue back.”

Woollaston lost his last-16 match 5-3 to Long Zehuang, while Jack Lisowski beat Wu Yize 5-0 to reach the quarter-finals.

Shaun Murphy is also through to the last eight after beating last year’s runner-up Ali Carter in a final-frame decider, and will face Xiao Guodong.

Xiao, who had beaten world champion Kyren Wilson in the previous round, defeated Barry Hawkins 5-2 to progress.

Elsewhere, Si Jiahui claimed three century breaks on his way to beating Welshman Duane Jones 5-2, while Zhang Anda edged a last-frame decider to beat amateur Mark Joyce.

Jake Paul may not be the most popular person in the world but nobody can knock his business savvy.

While most fighters are struggling to pay their bills when turning professional, the 27-year-old Ohio native was raking in multi-millions for his first three fights in the sport. It was actually after he met former UFC chief financial officer Nakisa Bidarian — who ended up as his partner in Most Valuable Promotions — that he found out his true worth as a combat sports athlete.

“I saw a unique opportunity to create a direct-to-consumer relationship within fight sports,” Bidarian told The Hollywood Reporter about his plans for Paul after the pair first met.

Bidarian went onto produce the pay-per-view card that featured Paul’s next opponent Mike Tyson in an exhibition bout against Roy Jones Jr. The event also featured Paul taking on former NBA star Nate Robinson on the undercard.

Appearing on the Tyson card was a calculated maneuver with Bidirian revealing that Paul ended up making $1 million for the fight — six times less than what he made for his professional debut against fellow social media influencer AnEsonGib.

The gamble paid off.

“I said, ‘Listen, this is what makes sense for this event, but I promise you, if you perform well, your next payday will be at least eight figures,’” Bidarian said. “We turned that into an over $10 million guarantee for his next fight [against Ben Askren].”

The hefty paydays were obviously nice, but Bidarian says that was just a very small piece to a much bigger puzzle that he was building after he started working with Paul.

Recognizing Paul’s appeal to a younger audience — an audience that had largely drifted away from boxing and started paying more attention to MMA through organizations like the UFC — Bidarian seized on the opening.

“Jake’s and my focus has been generating interest in Gen Z and Gen Alpha in the sport of boxing,” Bidarian said.. “And if you look at all the statistics, boxing is one of the fastest growing sports for Gen Alpha, by far. Jake’s had a large part to play in that. If you ask a lot of kids — age 6 to 16 — who’s the best boxer in the world, their answer is Jake Paul.”

As for his upcoming fight against Tyson on Nov. 15., Paul predicted viewership figures around 25 million thanks to the event airing on Netflix without a pay-per-view price attached with the streamer currently boasting over 270 million subscribers worldwide.

During a pre-fight press conference to promote the fight, Paul let it slip how much he’s making to face the former heavyweight boxing champion who turned 58 in June.

“I’m here to make 40 million dollars and knock out a legend,” Paul said in August.

Considering the gaudy figures just around those four fights, Paul’s next business venture doesn’t sound all that crazy.

While his focus remains boxing and continuing to build Most Valuable Promotions, Paul hopes to one day own an NFL team — just not his hometown Cleveland Browns.

“The Browns have a curse — so then I end up drifting to the [Kansas City] Chiefs, Paul said. “Travis Kelce, he’s from Cleveland, so I’m a fan.”

Five of the 12 current WSL teams play in the capital – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Tottenham and West Ham – while London City Lionesses moved to Hayes Lane in the summer, home of men’s League Two club Bromley, in the summer.

London City Lionesses have also relocated their training facilities to Aylesford in Kent, and Zubizarreta believes the club’s set-up is worthy of top-tier football.

“If you only invest in players but not staff or facilities it doesn’t make sense. It has to be at the same level,” he said.

“The facilities we have are impressive. The first time I arrived at the training centre, I know all the ones in Spain and it’s much better than even the training centre of Barcelona. Any player can be attracted to this environment.

“We need to put everything in the correct place, but we want to invest and give the first team very good facilities so they can improve, and the correct space for the academy to work with the young girls who at the beginning only want to play football.

“Let’s see if we can bring some of them to the first team.”

ARTIFICIAL intelligence has predicted when Cristiano Ronaldo will score his 1,000th career goal.

The Portuguese star is still going strong in the Middle East aged 39.

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Despite his advancing years, Ronaldo has scored eight goals in nine appearances in all competitions for Saudi side Al-Nassr so far this season.

While he has also continued scoring on the international stage, netting against Scotland last month.

In fact, it was while playing for Portugal that he recently hit the 900-goal mark.

His effort in Portugal‘s 2-1 win over Croatia in September saw him become the first player in history to score 900 goals.

Prior to that game, Ronaldo revealed on his YouTube channel that he had already set his sights on reaching 1,000.

He said: “Soon I will do 900 and, after, I will beat 1,000.

“I want to reach 1,000 goals. If I don’t have injuries, this, for me, is the most important. I want that.

“It’s the best marker I can have in football. There will be one difference: all of my goals have videos, so I can prove that.”

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In research conducted by Casadeapustas Bet, it has been predicted that Ronaldo will succeed in reaching 1,000 goals.

Using artificial intelligence, they determined that CR7 will hit his target by August 15, 2028.

This would mean that he would have to keep playing until 43 to reach his goal.

It’s predicted that Ronaldo’s scoring rate will begin to decrease after he turns 40 next February.

Should he continue to August 2028, he would have the opportunity to play in two more major tournaments for Portugal.

Ronaldo’s steady goalscoring rate over the next few years has been compared to what has been predicted of his great rival Lionel Messi.

The Argentine, 37, is 62 goals behind Ronaldo on 843.

Should he continue playing that long, the Inter Miami star is predicted to have scored 923 goals by the time Ronaldo reaches 1,000.

Daniel Cormier has mapped out a path for how Alex Pereira can become the greatest UFC fighter of all time.

Pereira has now defended his UFC light heavyweight title three times in the span of seven months, most recently with a brutal fourth-round TKO of Khalil Rountree this past Saturday at UFC 307. Pereira, who also held the UFC middleweight title, now has as many title defenses as Cormier did at 205 pounds.

Cormeir said winning a third UFC title could separate Pereira (12-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) from the pack.

“Pereira is in the conversation for the greatest of all time,” Cormier said on “Good Guy/Bad Guy” with Chael Sonnen. “Not yet quite the greatest, but if he can somehow win a fight at heavyweight, compete for the championship, or continue to defend this belt at light heavyweight, I don’t know that you can even question it.

“This is a man who became the middleweight champ, has defended the light heavyweight championship. He was never a real middleweight, though. He was so big that it’s easy to see how Izzy (Adesanya) got him the second time after he won the belt. …This dude is special. He’s very special.”

Cormier revealed that Pereira and his team contemplated pulling out of the fight after “Poatan” was dealing with a slew of injuries. So with Pereira deciding to fight and putting on a memorable performance, Cormier said the sky is the limit for him now.

“I believe he can do whatever he wants at this point, because he’s got a lot of goodwill with the organization right now,” Cormier said. “Pereira was hurt, too. I was talking to his manager and his coach after the fight, and they said they told the UFC, ‘We’re going to go to Salt Lake, and we’re going to try and train, but we may pull out.’ The UFC said to him, ‘That would suck, but let us know how it goes because we have two title fights, and we’ll elevate one if that’s what we need to do.’

“The goodwill you gain from the organization when you do that is unbelievable. So, if he did go into the offices of Dana, Hunter and those guys, and go, ‘I would like to fight Tom Aspinall for the interim championship’ – those actions that he showed last weekend leads to you receiving those types of opportunities. The world is really his oyster in terms of what he can do next, if he so chooses to try a fight up at heavyweight. But for me, it’s fight Ankalaev. Right now, you’ve got to fight Ankalaev if he gets through Rakic.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 307.

Joe Root’s impeccable century on the day he became England’s all-time leading runscorer led the charge back into the first Test against Pakistan in Multan.

Beginning day three on 32, Root needed another 39 to break Sir Alastair Cook’s record. The 33-year-old, in his 147th Test, created a moment of British sporting history, then went on and on to set up the prospect of a remarkable victory.

In punishing heat, this was one of the most gruelling of Root’s 35 Test hundreds. He batted throughout for his 176 not out, taking England to 492-3, only 64 behind.

After Zak Crawley was out for 78 and Ben Duckett recovered from his dislocated thumb to make 84, Harry Brook arrived for his own unbeaten 141, surviving the ball hitting the stumps but not dislodging the bails when he had 75.

Root and Brook have so far shared 243 for the fourth wicket, an all-wicket record for England in Pakistan. Resuming on 96-1, England overall added 396 for the loss of just two wickets on one of their great days in an overseas Test.

Never before have England conceded as many as Pakistan’s 556 and gone on to take a first-innings lead.

Now they are primed to do just that and, in doing so, will give themselves the chance of another stunning win in this country.

“I’m obviously proud but still feel there is plenty more left to do and many more runs left to get,” said Root.

“More than anything the way we played as a team is what stands out – we’ve got ourselves back in a really good position.”