Clinical Carlos Alcaraz moved a step closer to making more tennis history after cruising into the US Open quarter-finals.

The Spaniard, still showing no signs of the wrist injury which sidelined him for more than four months before the tournament, dismantled American Tommy Paul in straight sets.

Alcaraz is already the youngest man to complete career grand slam and should he go on to win back-to-back Flushing Meadows crowns he would become the only man in the open era to successfully defend major titles on all three surfaces.

Having won on the grass of Wimbledon in 2023 and 2024 and on the French Open clay in 2024 and last year, the 23-year-old can complete the set on hard courts if he triumphs next Sunday.

Paul, the 20th seed, had talked up his chances before the match, saying “I like to think of myself as somebody who always thinks I can beat those (top) players”.

But a 6-4 6-3 6-4 defeat means Alcaraz has now beaten the 29-year-old six times in a row, winning the last 14 sets they have contested.

He actually faced two set points at the end of the third, but swatted them away with two contemptuous forehand winners on his way to victory in two hours and 21 minutes.

“I played my game, tried to play my style,” he said. “Tommy is such a talented player, his shots are dangerous so I tried to be ready for the battle, to be ready to run and be aggressive.

“I think I did it pretty well. Really happy with the performance today. Am I back to full power? I mean I think so.”

Gianni Infantino will stand in next March’s FIFA presidential election, despite the backlash over his now-abandoned plan to bring private investment into the World Cup, football’s global governing body announced Sunday.

“The FIFA President announced in April that he will stand for re-election in 2027,” a FIFA spokesperson said. “Of course, nothing has changed. Mr Infantino will be standing for re-election.”

The 56-year-old Swiss has taken a pummelling since the announcement in late July of his short-lived FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan to bring private investment into FIFA events.

But now for the first time since the plan became public, FIFA has reiterated Infantino’s intention to run for a fourth and final term in next year’s elections.

Should he be re-elected, he will continue to serve as head of world football until 2031.

Read moreUEFA moves to file criminal complaint against Infantino over failed FIFA sell-off

Infantino is in Poland for the Women’s Under-20 World Cup, but refused to answer queries about his future when questioned by journalists on Saturday.

Only candidate

European body UEFA has accused Infantino of “criminal mismanagement” over the scheme and was the ringleader of the initial fightback to the announcement, including threatening to boycott all FIFA competitions, including the men’s and women’s World Cups, if it was not shelved.

If UEFA withdrew its threat to boycott FIFA tournaments on August 27 – ahead of the Women’s Under-20 World Cup in Poland – it remains absolute in its conviction that Infantino must depart his role.

The European body has filed requests in the USA for the disclosure of documents related to the plan from FIFA and partners.

If successful in gaining access to the documents, UEFA had said it intends to lodge a legal complaint in Switzerland, saying it has been assured the case would meet the requirements to be heard in a Swiss court.

It has also found solid support from North American body CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in its actions against Infantino.

The three confederations have kept up the pressure and collaborated on a no-holds-barred joint letter issued last month.

“Leadership in football is not a possession. It is not about holding – or demanding – power to be held,” they wrote.

CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani is widely seen as the likeliest challenger to Infantino – UEFA boss Aleksander Ceferin has ruled himself out.

Read moreUEFA chief Ceferin calls for Infantino to quit but rules out replacing him

Montagliani, a FIFA vice-president, had long been regarded as a close ally of Infantino, but there were signs, even before he distanced himself over the now-scrapped plan to allow private investment into World Cups, that he viewed FIFA’s purpose somewhat differently to the Swiss.

But Infantino is not without friends – 2034 World Cup hosts Saudi Arabia came out in support last month, with African football’s governing body CAF and South America’s CONMEBOL supportive, too.

Earlier in September, FIFA also accused UEFA of a “smear campaign” and a “fishing expedition” against Infantino.

As the only declared candidate so far for the election due to take place in Rabat, Infantino will need a simple majority of votes from the 211 federations affiliated to FIFA to extend his term of office, which began in 2016 and was renewed in 2023.

Candidate nominations for next year’s election must be submitted by November 18.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

A lot of the time, fantasy football experts are listing Vikings WR1 Justin Jefferson down in the 2nd Round of fantasy drafts. That’s madness.

Nobody has generated more air yards across his opening six NFL seasons than Jefferson. That’s despite starting as a backup for Mike Zimmer. That’s despite seeing all of these passers throw him the ball since 2022: Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullens, Jaren Hall, Sam Darnold, Joshua Dobbs, J.J. McCarthy, Max Brosmer, and Carson Wentz. Now with Kyler Murray, Jefferson is looking to prove many naysayers wrong.

Vikings WR1 Justin Jefferson & The Fantasy Football Madness

Consider just a trio of spots that list Justin Jefferson in some fantasy rankings:

Nobody truly knows how fantasy leagues are going to unfold. What’s crystal clear, however, is that crushing the ADP is a surefire way to give a team an edge. Jefferson offers potential for this kind of advantage.

Last season was pretty poor, at least for Jefferson. Understand, though, that Jefferson’s bad isn’t bad.

With 84 receptions, Jefferson finished off at 13th in the NFL for that stat category, giving him a ton of value in PRR leagues. His 1,048 receiving yards were similarly modest compared to what the WR1 has done in the past. Just note that he still finished at 12th in the NFL with that total.

Where he could be said to have done legitimately poorly was in his touchdown caches, or lack thereof. Boasting just 2 scores is a shortcoming that needs to get fixed. The receiver sits in a tie for 118th with the 2 scores.

Nobody has ever mistaken Jefferson with Davante Adams when it comes to touchdowns. A scoring assassin he is not. What happens, though, if he’s just good rather than great in this area? Where could he go with his game if he gets within the 8-10 touchdown range?

Elite catches and yards can do wonders if he finds a way to get back to good with touchdowns.

Kyler Murray isn’t a perfect quarterback. However, he is a good quarterback. Seeing him form some nice chemistry with Jefferson should be the expectation. At 29, Murray has accumulated plenty of experience, meaning he’ll know where his bread is buttered. He’ll look to his WR1 regularly.

As it relates to numbers, Justin Jefferson could very plausibly climb up to 100 catches, 1,500 yards, and 8 touchdowns. That’s an eye-popping fantasy season (especially in PPR) that’s sometimes being priced at a “very good” rather than an “elite” level.

Justin Jefferson is 27.

Senior Editor for Vikings Territory & PurplePTSD . Twitter & Bluesky: @VikingsGazette. Email: k.joudry[at]vikingsterritory[dot]com. Canadian. Jude 1:24-25.

Once the Washington Huskies’ celebration of beating bitter rival Oregon in the 2023 Pac-12 Championship Game — and clinching a spot in the College Football Playoff — finally calmed down, an awkward reality began to set in.

This was the end of Pac-12 football as we knew it.

Michael Penix Jr. and Washington celebrate winning the Pac-12 Championship in 2023. (Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images)

One of the oldest conferences in college sports, dating back to the formation of the Pacific Coast Conference in 1915, was about to disappear. Its demise had been years in the making, with the inability to secure and improve its media rights deal at the center of the problem. As name, image and likeness transformed college football, the premier programs knew they could no longer afford to fall behind the Big Ten and SEC.

Washington, Oregon, UCLA and USC headed to the Big Ten. Reacting to their departure, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah joined the Big 12. Left hanging, Cal and Stanford scurried to find a home in the ACC. The movement diminished the Pac-12 to a two-team conference of Washington State and Oregon State. 

Gone were the days of Pac-12 basketball tournaments in Las Vegas. The Apple Cup rivalry between Washington and Washington State moved to the beginning of the season. The tradition of staying up late to watch the ever-chaotic “Pac-12 After Dark” ended. 

Now, after two years of the Pac-12 conference essentially ceasing to exist, it’s back. 

So back. 

The new-look Pac-12 in 2026 looks much different than it did in the past. There will still be rivalries, heated competition, and late-night shockers, but it’s no longer viewed as a power conference. Now, a team must be ranked higher than every other Group of Six opponent in the final top 25 to reach the College Football Playoff. 

Another fun fact: Every Pac-12 football team has the word “State” in its name. 

The new members include five teams from the Mountain West — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State — and one from the Sun Belt Conference, Texas State. They join Oregon State and Washington State to complete the eight-team Pac-12.

The Broncos have long been one of the premier Group of Six programs, and now bring their famous blue field to the bright lights of the Pac-12. Fresno State and Utah State each qualified for bowl games in 2025, while Colorado State will look to turn things around under former UCLA coach Jim Mora. Texas State, meanwhile, has won a bowl game in each of the past three seasons.

One wrinkle: Gonzaga will join the conference for college basketball, bringing the Pac-12 to nine members in that sport. The Bulldogs have qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of the past 17 seasons, including trips to the national championship game in 2017 and 2021.

The new-look Pac-12 might not have the luster or level of competition of its predecessor, but it should be one of, if not the, strongest Group of Six conferences in both football and basketball.

Hang on. We’d seen that goal before, hadn’t we? We’d seen Martin Odegaard just there, lurking undetected in a pocket of space between defence and midfield. We’d seen Christos Tzolis drive inside and fire that exact pass into the centre. We’d seen Riccardo Calafiori’s decoy run and Kai Havertz intelligently leave it. We’d seen Odegaard’s little dart, the velcro control, the poise as he waited just a beat before pulling the trigger.

If Odegaard’s winning goal against Chelsea felt familiar, that’s because he’d scored a carbon copy against Manchester City in the Community Shield three weeks earlier. The same players, the same movements, the same outcome, with a world-class goalkeeper – then Gianluigi Donnarumma, now Emiliano Martinez – left beaten on the ground as the ball hit the net.

The prevailing question at the start of the season was not who would win the league so much as how Arsenal would win it. Will they roll out the 2025/26 blueprint, bludgeoning teams to death by a thousand corners, strangling possession, smothering all routes to xG? Or would we see something altogether more free-flowing and spontaneous now the weight of a 22-year wait had been lifted?

You can already feel a buzz in the air outside the Emirates, a sense that the brittleness of past years has disappeared in the wind. Music blaring from the megastore DJ could be heard down every road leading to Armoury Square three hours before kick-off. Inside, hundreds queued to buy an Arsenal scarf or pyjamas or a cushion with Declan Rice’s face on. Outside, content creators jostled for space while fans videoed fellow fans being interviewed by other fans on YouTube.

It is that strange time of the season when the leaves are still green and summer is clinging on. The transfer frenzy has only just ended and, really, we don’t know anything yet. The sample sizes are small and in this twilight window, we inevitably draw bad judgments. At exactly the same stage last year, three games in, the champions Liverpool beat the pretenders Arsenal and the title race was surely over.

What sort of Arsenal might we get? The first few games of the season had not served up a definitive answer, but this game felt different. It was no doubt influenced by Chelsea’s decision to play basketball, by Morgan Rogers’ early goal which forced Arsenal to show urgency, by Martinez, chief s***house of the Premier League, whose presence poked the Emirates into furious noise. Even so, this was a performance full of roving positions, slick interchanges and seamless rotations which felt thrilling at times, and Chelsea struggled to follow them.

There was a moment late in the first half when Havertz was on the right wing, Calafiori was galloping into the right half-space, Odegaard was the striker and Bukayo Saka was inside as the No 10. Only David Raya, Ezri Konsa and Gabriel Magalhaes could claim to have been at their stations. And Odegaard’s goal was a product of a higher tempo that this Arsenal side had at times abandoned in the final months of last season, understandably so through tension, through fatigue, perhaps even through sheer fear at what they might lose.

It didn’t help that Arsenal played without this version of Odegaard last season, a campaign derailed by injury. He rediscovered his flow captaining Norway at the World Cup and has continued that form with three goals in four Arsenal games, if you like to count the Community Shield as a game. Where he has sometimes fallen into a rhythm of taking the easy option, being Arsenal’s playmaker on the fringe of a match, here there was a boldness to his runs, getting closer to Havertz, nearer the goal, demanding the ball in tight spaces where his close control can hurt opponents.

“He’s fit, his confidence is one of the highest that I’ve seen him and he has a point to prove,” said Arteta. “Kai the same, Bukayo the same. We missed so many attacking players last season for long, long periods, and I don’t know how many times they’ve played together, those three, in the last few years. Probably not much. You feel the chemistry that they have between them and what they can produce. You have to play with real intent and that’s what I loved seeing today. He was running forward, he took shots, he created so many situations for his teammates.”

Are Arsenal about to unleash a season of wild, entertaining chaos-ball? Probably not. Arteta is not about to abandon the positional principles that have served his coaching career so well. Arsenal will not play a team as frantic as this Chelsea side every week. But there is a paradox here, that the cohesion and connections in this team are so well honed by now, so sharply refined, that Arsenal can produce pre-planned patterns as mesmerising to watch and difficult to defend as anything off the cuff.

Perhaps this is the next evolution of Arteta’s team, to be as meticulously well-drilled in the disorder of open play as they are standing over the certainty of a set-piece. The fact Odegaard scored the same goal twice in a month suggests that, even within the confines of their manager’s highly tuned system, Arsenal might be unlocking some new attacking verve.

Nigerian clubs recorded contrasting results in the CAF inter-club competitions on Sunday, with Rangers International held to a 1-1 draw by AS SOBEMAP, while El-Kanemi Warriors claimed a convincing 3-0 win over UDIB.

Rangers Held to Draw in Abeokuta

Rangers International were forced to settle for a 1-1 draw against AS SOBEMAP of Benin Republic in the first leg of their CAF Champions League first preliminary round tie at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena in Abeokuta.

The Nigerian champions took the lead through defender Chidozie, who continued his impressive goalscoring form to put the Flying Antelopes ahead.

AS SOBEMAP, however, responded strongly, with Emmanuel Ali scoring the equaliser to deny Rangers a home victory.

The draw leaves Rangers with work to do in the second leg as they look to secure a place in the next round.

Rangers are hosting their continental matches in Abeokuta because of the ongoing renovation of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium in Enugu.

The second leg will take place in Benin Republic on September 11, with coach Fidelis Ilechukwu and his players needing a strong performance away from home.

El-Kanemi Warriors Shine Against UDIB

El-Kanemi Warriors, meanwhile, enjoyed a more positive outing in the CAF Confederation Cup, beating União Desportiva Internacional de Bissau (UDIB) 3-0 in Ikenne.

The Maiduguri-based club stepped up their performance after a goalless first half, scoring three times after the break to secure a comfortable victory.

The result gives El-Kanemi a strong advantage heading into the second leg in Bissau next week.

The Warriors will now look to protect their three-goal lead away from home and complete their qualification to the next stage.

With Rangers facing a tough return leg against AS SOBEMAP and El-Kanemi holding a healthy advantage over UDIB, Nigeria ended Sunday’s CAF fixtures with mixed results.

Lamine Yamal struck twice for Barcelona as they demolished Valencia 5-0 on Sunday to maintain their 100 percent start in La Liga. The reigning champions moved three points clear at the top of La Liga, after Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid lost 1-0 at Real Betis on Friday. Fermin Lopez, Raphinha and Pedri were also on target for Hansi Flick’s swaggering visitors on a hot afternoon on Spain’s east coast. Yamal did not take part in the team training session on Saturday after a knock but showed no signs of it during a dazzling display against Carlos Corberan’s Los Che.

Barcelona, the only team in the top flight to win their first four games, took control from the start to the upset of Valencia’s fans at a persistently bad-tempered Mestalla stadium.

“We played a fantastic game, it was nearly perfect, we controlled, we were dominant and this is what I want from the team,” said Flick.

“We stay calm and then if it’s possible to score we try to do it — it was a fantastic game for us.

“Nothing is perfect, you always can improve. If it’s perfect then you can stop working.”

Yamal opened the scoring with a clever lofted finish in the sixth minute after Lopez dinked a superb ball over the top for the teenage star.

The 19-year-old slammed home at the near post for what he thought was Barca’s second goal but the goal was disallowed for a tight offside after a VAR review.

Lopez netted the second with a crisp finish in the 22nd minute after former Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon teed him up.

Barcelona suffered a blow when Eric Garcia had to go off hurt midway through the first half after a collision with team-mate Rodri’s shoulder, on the midfielder’s first start since arriving this summer from Manchester City.

Yamal fired narrowly wide and Lopez struck the post as Flick’s side continued to dominate. Barca goalkeeper Joan Garcia made a smart save to thwart Arnaut Danjuma at his near post before the break.

Raphinha, starting again as the team’s centre-forward, tapped home his sixth goal of the season from close range after Lopez fed him.

Valencia goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski saved from Rodri before Pedri netted Barcelona’s fourth after an exchange of passes with Dani Olmo.

New arrival Gabriel Jesus came on for his Barca debut as a substitute in the final 10 minutes and sent a low effort just wide.

Yamal stayed onside to collect another Olmo pass and put away Barca’s fifth and conclude a profitable afternoon for both the World Cup winner and the Catalan giants.

“We have a very young team, with the right transfers we made, but it’s the beginning of the season, it’s not the end,” added Flick, telling his team not to get too excited yet about their strong start.

“We have to go a long, long way.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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After weeks of delays and behind-the-scenes attempts to cobble something meaningful together, UFC 332 in Salt Lake City, Utah finally has a championship main event: Natalia Silva vs. Wang Cong for the vacant women’s flyweight belt.

Wait, what? The flyweight belt that Valentina Shevchenko has defended a whopping nine times since 2018 across two title runs? That’s now vacant? When announcing Silva vs. Cong, they cited a “Bullet” injury but didn’t really get into details on how the belt was put back up for grabs. A statement from Shevchenko’s coach Pavel Fedotov gave a bit more info.

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“We were supposed to fight on October 3 against Natalia Silva, but due to an injury to the ligaments in the shoulder and back, we decided not to push things and postpone the fight,” Fedotov wrote (via Ushatayka). “Given that the recovery will take a long time, we’ve made the decision to temporarily vacate the belt, and once she recovers, she will fight for it again.”