In the end, Chelsea clung on for a brave point. Emiliano Martinez made an important late save. They survived a barrage of set-pieces. And when Cole Palmer stood over a free-kick 30 yards from goal, with the last kick of the game, he pumped it into the stands just to be safe. A draw against a team who were, for much of the afternoon, top of the league? You have to take it.

Of course that wasn’t quite the mood at Stamford Bridge when the final whistle blew on this 2-2 draw. A volley of boos rang out and it was hard to know exactly who they were for. The players, perhaps, who were collectively disconnected and at times individually calamitous. The referee, Farai Hallam, who at one point intercepted a Chelsea counterattack with his feet and picked up the ball with his hands, like a schoolteacher at the end of break time. Chelsea were exasperated when he waved away several handball shouts.

But really it was an outpouring of frustration, that as talented a front three as Chelsea possess, they cannot possibly outscore a defence as chaotic and porous as this one. Chelsea have conceded at least two goals in all four Premier League games this season, 13 goals in six games in all competitions, and that is too much for Palmer, Joao Pedro and Morgan Rogers to overcome every weekend. Arsenal, by comparison, have conceded only once.

Chelsea went from 1-0 up to 2-1 down in six minutes, and Xabi Alonso accused his players of “soft” defending. “We are attacking better than defending,” he understated. “It’s just four games, but the dynamic in terms of conceding, I don’t like it, and we need to do much better. Open play, set-pieces, long balls – this toughness, this competitive sense, we can do better.”

Perhaps there was also some confusion mixed into the fans’ outpouring, after a game when Alonso’s team didn’t always make sense. Why was Maxence Lacroix not at the heart of defence from the start? Why doesn’t the manager trust Estevao Willian when Chelsea are chasing a game? What exactly is the purpose of Malo Gusto?

The first Hull goal was particularly troubling from Chelsea’s perspective. Wesley Fofana watched a long ball fly over his head, Gusto lost a 50-50 in the corner and Jorrel Hato lost his senses, misjudging the flight of the cross like it was his first time encountering this strange bouncing sphere. Mohamed Belloumi couldn’t believe his luck as the ball hopped over Hato, and he took the opportunity beautifully with a low drive under Martinez’s body.

Moments before Hull’s second, it was quite obvious to everyone in the stadium before the corner was taken that Belloumi was alone in a sunny glade on the edge of the box. He pleaded for a pass which didn’t come, and yet still had no Chelsea player near him by the time the ball flew into the middle, bounced off the bar and rolled out to his feet. This time his finish took a couple of fortunate deflections, but you couldn’t say Hull deserved any less.

Martinez did not have his finest afternoon. He flapped at the corner which led to Belloumi’s second goal, and in the second half fumbled a routine shot which almost presented the ball to Oli McBurnie to tap in what would have most probably been the winner.

Another recruit from Aston Villa with improvements to make is Austin MacPhee, Chelsea’s hirsute set-piece coach, who bobbed around the technical area waving his arms and looking generally exasperated with players who apparently weren’t following his instructions, as if somehow that wasn’t his fault. Some of Chelsea’s intricate attacking corners almost worked, when Palmer would ghost to the front post and receive a low pass, but they need to spend time on the defensive side.

These are early days, of course. Alonso is still learning his best combinations. Chelsea will be better when Moises Caicedo returns, when Marco Palestra finally begins his career here. But for all their successful trading, earning a billion pounds in sales since BlueCo took over, there was a sense that some past players were missing. Trevoh Chalobah, for example, was Chelsea’s best defender for large parts of last season and would surely have enhanced this ragged display.

The only positive is that their attack continues to fire. Rogers and Pedro produced clinical finishes in each half, and while it wasn’t Palmer’s best game, he played a major hand in both goals. Palmer has a habit of drifting to the fringes when it becomes congested, partly out of an instinctive feeling of where the space is, where the opponents’ soft spots are, and partly out of frustration at a lack of involvement. He loitered on the left and then drove into the box to feed Pedro, who lashed a first-time finish into the roof of the net.

But they could not find another, and if anything it was Hull who looked most likely to score a third. No Premier League team have been involved in as many goals as Chelsea so far this season, but Alonso would much rather they were not the top flight’s great entertainers.

“I hope that one day you say it was a boring game and we won,” he said. “For sure, it’s some repeated patterns that we are making. It will take time to fix them. When we get the lead, you still need to be competing and not give the chance so easily for them to come back.

“Especially in the first goal, we can do much better. It was too soft to give them this hope because until then we were controlling, we were creating chances … It was from a long ball, two bounces. The way it happened, you need to be very, very aware, and very ready that the danger can come from any situation. If you are soft or if you are not prepared, you will get punished.”

NEW YORK (AP) — American Christian Harrison and British partner Neal Skupski won their second Grand Slam men’s doubles title of the year by defeating Germany’s Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz 6-4, 7-6 (6) in the U.S. Open final on Saturday.

Harrison and Skupski were playing just their second tournament together when they won the Australian Open in January. They are the fourth men’s team to win these two majors in the same year since Melbourne went to hard courts in 1988.

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“It’s been a great year,” Harrison said. “To get two titles like this, I’m speechless — and to do it at home.”

They cruised through at Flushing Meadows, becoming just the third team since the Open era began in 1968 to win without dropping a set. It took fending off set point in the second during the tiebreak to join the duos of John McEnroe and Peter Fleming in 1983 and Bob and Mike Bryan in 2008 and ’10 in the history books.

“It’s amazing what a year does in tennis,” said Skupski, who lost in the 2025 U.S. Open and French Open finals with former partner Joe Salisbury. “Still in shock. … This moment right now feels so special.”

Harrison is a major champion on home soil after undergoing eight surgeries from 2009-18 that led him to largely abandon singles play to focus on doubles. That included two operations on his left femur, along with one on each hip and adductor.

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Father and coach Pat was in attendance along with other family members, putting aside his fear of flying to make the trip.

“Got my dad to fly up here,” Christian Harrison said. “He doesn’t fly.”

Krawietz and Puetz came up short in the final for a second time in three years. They lost to the Australian pair of Max Purcell Jordan Thompson in 2024.

“To lose a final hurts, of course,” Krawietz said. “See you next year.”

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Week 1 provided a satisfying introduction to the 2026 college football season, but Week 2 serves up the true main-event of the campaign’s first month.

“It’s great for college football,” Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said on Tuesday of his No. 1-ranked Buckeyes visiting No. 5 Texas on Saturday. “This is going to be an unbelievable atmosphere down here against a great opponent. Everybody in the country will be watching.”

And everybody tuning into the prime-time kickoff from Austin presumably agrees with Day that this matchup is indeed great for the sport, regardless if one is wearing scarlet and gray or burnt orange.

The Week 1 slate was not without thrilling contests, capped on Monday with SMU escaping Florida State with a 27-24 win. The Mustangs’ victory was the second marquee matchup in as many nights coming down to a field goal, as Ole Miss outlasted Louisville in a Sunday night barnburner, 41-38.

Second-ranked Oregon’s 34-27 win over Boise State on Saturday likewise provided an exciting return to action. What’s more, it embodied a positive byproduct of the College Football Playoff as it exists now.

Before the expansion to a 12-team tournament, the loss — which came down to the final possession — would have eliminated Boise State from title contention. Given the Broncos’ status coming in unranked, winning in such nail-biting fashion may well have ended Oregon’s aspirations for a championship back in the Bowl Championship Series days.

The opposite side of that perspective, however, suggests that lower stakes for high-profile non-conference contests devalues their meaning. In the BCS days, Ohio State-Texas might well have been a de facto playoff game in an era when only two teams could play for a national championship at season’s end.

One can be understandably pessimistic over college football trading in a postseason atmosphere every Saturday over the span of three months for a system that has the 2025 version of Alabama competing for a title.

But in the same vein, Ohio State traveling to Texas offers hope of the sport encouraging more of these kind of early-season matchups.

Consider that in 1998 — the first season of the BCS — the campaign kicked off with eight Top 25 matchups in Weeks 0 and 1. The 2026 slate opened with just the Ole Miss-Louisville game.

This year’s slate is more in line with the trend that began early into the BCS years. The system tacitly discouraged scheduling up in the non-conference almost immediately, with a trip to Miami denying UCLA a title-game spot in 1998 and the Hurricanes coming up on the other end of a similar scenario in 2000 when it lost a September heartbreaker at Washington.

By the first season of the four-team Playoff in 2014, the season kicked off with just one Top 25 game. Here in the 12-team era, the dearth of such contests in the non-conference portion of most teams’ schedules has become more of a tradition than heavyweight showdowns like Ohio State and Texas.

Should Saturday’s losing side endure the rest of their schedule that follows, however, and lands a spot in the Playoff, perhaps the expanded bracket can be the conduit that creates more such matchups.

That’s a win for the players who seek high-profile competition, as Day alluded to on Tuesday.

“This is why you come to Ohio State,” he said.. “This is why you come to Texas.”

And games like Ohio State-Texas are why we follow college football.

Seattle Seahawks fans, breathe.

While Sam Darnold will likely miss at least one game due to a hip injury he suffered in the team’s Wednesday night season opener against the New England Patriots, an MRI has determined that Seattle’s starting quarterback “dodged a bullet” and shouldn’t miss an extended period of time, NFL Media reported on Thursday afternoon.

Darnold hobbled off the field after being sacked on Seattle’s opening drive on Wednesday night and didn’t return. The Seahawks later announced that Darnold sustained a hip injury and wouldn’t return, with backup Drew Lock stepping in and helping Seattle pull off a come-from-behind 13-10 victory over New England.

After the game, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald revealed the team was “able to rule out a fracture” regarding Darnold’s hip.

In what was a rematch of Super Bowl LX, which the Seahawks won 29-13, Lock finished with 187 passing yards, one passing touchdown, no interceptions and a 113.3 passer rating, while completing 72.7% of his passes (16 of 22).

If Darnold misses time, Lock would presumably become Seattle’s starting quarterback, with second-year signal caller and 2025 third-round pick Jalen Milroe serving as the backup quarterback. Lock has made 28 starts over his seven-plus-year NFL career (2019-present), most recently making five starts for the New York Giants in 2024.

According to the Ringer, Darnold suffered a muscle strain after initial X-rays confirmed no fracture. While he is expected to avoid Injured Reserve, his immediate return is uncertain, and he is likely to miss time.

Seattle’s next two games are road tilts against the Arizona Cardinals (Sept. 20) and Washington Commanders (Sept. 27). With Darnold unable to go next week, the expectation is Drew Lock will remain the quarterback moving forward.

The 29-year-old Darnold is in his second season with the Seahawks. Last year (2025), Darnold earned his second consecutive Pro Bowl nod, throwing for 4,048 yards, 25 touchdowns and 14 interceptions, while posting a 99.1 passer rating and completing 67.7% of his passes in a 14-3 season for Seattle. 

Oregon-Oklahoma State weather updates: Latest news on forecast after thunderstorms, lightning push back kickoff originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Those hoping to tune into No. 6 Oregon‘s clash with Oklahoma State were dealt a cruel blow in the lead-up to the contest’s scheduled kickoff.

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Thunder and lightning proved unruly in the lead-up to game’s 12 p.m. ET start. As it turned out, Mother Nature preferred a slightly later opening act.

Here’s the latest on the weather delay preventing the Ducks and Cowboys from taking the field.

MORE: Ranking the top 25 prospects for the 2027 NFL Draft in Ohio State-Texas game

Oregon-Oklahoma State weather updates

Kickoff for Oregon vs. Oklahoma State was slated to take place at 12 p.m. ET (11 a.m. local time). As it turned out, that start time proved to be something of a moving target; the game was subjected to a lengthy delay after thunderstorms roved above Boone Pickens Stadium.

If you invite a die-hard Michigan fan to a live show and give him the chance to build his all-time Wolverines football team, you better be ready for some debate.

Dave Portnoy, one of Michigan’s most passionate — and outspoken — fans, was given that opportunity Thursday during a special live edition of “The Joel Klatt Show” in Ann Arbor ahead of Saturday’s showdown between Michigan and Oklahoma (noon ET, FOX).

Klatt asked Portnoy to select an all-time Michigan team consisting of a quarterback, running back, two wide receivers and one defensive player. Portnoy selected a recent national champion at quarterback, a legendary running back, two of the program’s most dynamic receivers and perhaps the greatest player in school history on defense.

Here’s who made Portnoy’s all-time Michigan team:

Career stats: 482-of-713 passing (67.6%) for 6,226 passing yards, 49 passing TDs, and 11 INTs; 161 carries for 632 rushing yards and 10 rushing TDs.

Portnoy’s thoughts: “To me, it’s a no-brainer. It’s not even close. If you’re saying you need a QB for the NFL, it’s [Tom] Brady, clearly. But [McCarthy’s] record was 27-1 as a starter. You gotta remember, before he came here, we couldn’t beat Ohio State. He turned the whole program around. Michigan was down, and when McCarthy came in, everything turned.

“I wanted Jim Harbaugh gone. … Every year we were getting drummed [by Ohio State]. There were some down years. But, McCarthy’s record, him winning the national championship. … I don’t know how anybody could say anybody but him.”

Career stats: 434 carries, 2,624 rushing yards, 24 rushing touchdowns, 12 receptions, 121 receiving yards.

Portnoy’s Thoughts: “I’m going with Biakabutuka. He had 313 yards against Ohio State, which was the No. 2 team in the country at the time and undefeated. He made them look bad. I loved Biakabutuka. I had a crush on Biakabutuka.”

Career stats: Howard: 134 receptions for 2,146 receiving yards (16.0 YPR) and 32 receiving TDs; 23 rushes for 249 rushing yards and 2 rushing TDs; 45 kickoff returns for 1,211 yards and 2 TDs; 26 punt returns for 337 yards and 1 TD

Carter: 161 receptions for 3,076 receiving yards (19.1 YPR) and 37 receiving TDs; 36 rushes for 213 rushing yards and 1 rushing TD; 79 punt returns for 907 yards and 2 TDs; 63 kickoff returns for 1,606 yards (40 total touchdowns).

Portnoy’s thoughts: “I want Desmond [Howard] and Anthony Carter. I’m down with that.”

Career stats: 21 receptions, 370 receiving yards, 3 receiving TDs, 167 rushing yards, 2 rushing TDs, 16 interceptions.

Portnoy’s thoughts: “You could argue Aidan Hutchinson. There’s that clip of him just taking the Ohio State lineman and just throwing him into the fourth row. But, yeah, it’s gotta be Woodson.”

Shreyas Iyer (Image credit: BCCI)

NEW DELHI: India captain Shreyas Iyer believes his good understanding with head coach Gautam Gambhir can help India maintain clear communication and an attacking mindset in T20 cricket. India will face Afghanistan in the first T20I at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday.Iyer and Gambhir have worked together at Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), where they helped the franchise win the IPL title in 2024. Iyer was the captain, while Gambhir was the mentor.Iyer believes Gambhir’s aggressive approach and his ability to understand individual players can help the team stay clear about their roles.“I feel that he has got a very aggressive mindset. He is someone who is always looking to win when he steps onto the field. He wants every individual to perform, which is pretty much given as a coach. So, he builds a lot of trust and confidence amongst the team, and every player knows what their role and clarity is.“So, I think all these alignments are very much important when it comes to coaching skills, and he has got an amazing one-on-one player management approach. So, that is essential going forward in the tournament when you have that kind of relationship with every player because all of us are different in our own ways and you need to understand a certain player.”Iyer understands Gambhir’s approachIyer and Gambhir did not have an ideal start after India lost series in Ireland and England. Iyer then led India to a 3-0 series win over Zimbabwe in July, with VVS Laxman serving as the stand-in head coach.Having worked with Gambhir at KKR, Iyer said he already has a good idea of how the India coach thinks and approaches the game.“Both of us, Gauti bhai and I, have been in this scenario where we need to know the players and how they can deliver for the team. The more matches we win, the more we would be getting to know each other closely. I have worked with him in the past in KKR. So, I definitely know how his mind works and how his approach is going to be,” said Iyer in the pre-match press conference on Saturday.India focus on Afghanistan firstAfghanistan will be India’s first challenge, with several of their players familiar with Indian conditions after playing in the IPL.Iyer said India would not look too far ahead and would instead focus on the opening game.“See, we will go game by game. We don’t have to think too much about the future. We are thinking about the first game. We know that Afghanistan is a nice team, and our preparation has also been promising for the last couple of days. Players are in great shape and mindset.“So, we have to stay in the present and see to it that we deliver when the time comes. Leading up to the Asian Games, we have got a great opportunity to play against a very quality side. So, looking for a great competition and yes, fingers crossed. We will deliver to the best of our abilities.”Iyer excited about first Asian GamesIyer is also looking forward to his first Asian Games, where he will lead India in their bid to defend the gold medal.The India captain said he is excited about meeting athletes from different sports and learning more about their mindset.“It is definitely an exciting time for me and also for the team because it is going to be my first time, and there are a couple of players who have already been in the last Asian Games.“So, an exciting time. The first match we are going to play is against Japan. So, that is going to be a historic one, and I will be sharing a relationship with the hockey players and other Olympic players and athletes who will be there along with us.“Definitely would be a great interaction, and I would be eagerly waiting to go there and interact with them and know what their mindset is. Probably go to one of the games and cheer for them as well. So, yes, we are going as a whole nation and then definitely we want to see to it that we come back triumphant,” he concluded.

A top AEW star has made a major revelation regarding her pregnancy while reflecting on a recent NSFW moment in Tony Khan’s promotion.

The star in focus is Jessica McKay (fka Billie Kay) of the popular tag team, The IInspiration, alongside her best friend, Cassie Lee. IInspiration made their AEW debut at House Rules, a house show held in Brisbane the day after the Grand Slam: Australia event in Sydney in February. The duo then began competing in ROH, and their last match came on the May 30 edition, where they lost to Mina Shirakawa and Harley Cameron. Notably, the match featured an NSFW moment.

Jessica McKay recently announced that she is four months pregnant. In her recent Instagram story post, she reflected on IInspiration’s match against Shirakawa and Cameron. The former WWE Women’s Tag Champion and TNA Knockouts Tag Champion revealed that she was pregnant during that match but didn’t know it. The clip she posted was an unconventional wrestling moment, as the foursome engaged in a somewhat over-the-top, synchronized chest-shaking routine.

“Fun fact, I was actually pregnant here & I didn’t know it,” wrote McKay in her IG stories.

Check out her IG story post below:

AEW star Jessica McKay on the working relationship between WWE and TNA

Jessica McKay is a veteran in the pro-wrestling industry and has worked for all three top North American wrestling promotions: WWE, TNA, and now AEW. Many know that WWE and TNA have a working relationship. The former Billie Kay explained how beneficial it is for the business during an appearance on TMZ Sports’ Inside The Ring.

“I think it’s incredible. I think it’s just so good for the wrestling business in general, because it opens up doors for so many more people. It’s also exciting. It’s exciting watching each show and not knowing if somebody is going to pop over to either show. It’s really exciting. So I’m all for it. I think it’s a great partnership. It’s definitely been awesome to watch,” she said. [H/T: Fightful]

It will be interesting to see whether the IInspiration will go on to become AEW Women’s Tag Team Champions once Jessica McKay returns to active competition.