Author: admin

NEW YORK — Naomi Osaka is back in the semifinal of a major, but this time it feels different — she’s in the final four of a Slam for the first time as a mother.

Speaking after her 6-4, 7-6 (3) win over Karolina Muchova on Wednesday night in the US Open quarterfinals, the 27-year-old reflected on how she was inspired by others moms on the Hologic WTA Tour, and how their success pushed her to get back to the mountaintop.

“I’m really inspired by all the moms on tour,” said Osaka, who gave birth to a girl, Shai, in July of 2023. “I also have this thing of feeling like I’m not doing good enough, or I’m being left behind. And when all the moms came back and they did well kind of off the bat, I sort of felt like there was something wrong with me.

“I know that Belinda [Bencic] made the semis of Wimbledon, so I was just really … I just really felt like I was losing a race in some sort of weird way. That was on my mind, and now I’m here and I feel like a weight’s been lifted off of my shoulders.”

It’s been a challenging couple of years for Osaka, who has been open about her difficult pregnancy, body image issues and mental health struggles. But the four-time major champion has worked her way back into peak playing form this summer, reaching the final in Montreal before her incredible run in New York.

She can identify the turning point of her season (perhaps career?), after a third-round loss to Emma Raducanu in Washington, D.C. in late July. Even though it was another disappointing result, she could feel that the tide was turning and better times were ahead.

“After I played Raducanu, I called a roundtable of my team, and I was just very confused how confident I was in myself,” she said after the match. “Because even though I lost, I just remember telling them, ‘I think I can beat anyone from the baseline still, even though I lost, and we just have to figure out if I have to change my game plan or if I just have to do something new and different.’

“Then obviously Tomasz [Wiktorowski] came in the picture, and we’ve kind of been on a roll since then.”

The two-time US Open champion hired Wiktorowski to coach her — replacing Patrick Mouratoglou — ahead of Montreal, and since then all she’s done is win 11 of 12 matches, including victories over Elina Svitolina, Muchova and World No. 3 Coco Gauff. (Her lone loss in that span was to Victoria Mboko in the Montreal final.)

As thrilled as she is, and as aware of how powerful and meaningful this moment is, the World No. 24 will take time after the tournament to really reflect on how far she’s come.

For now, she has a match to focus on — against American Amanda Anisimova — in the second semifinal on Thursday night. Unfortunately there’s no preferential scheduling treatment for moms.

“I appreciate the journey a lot more now,” she said. “I think when I was younger, I kind of just kept thinking the next one, the next one, the next one. Obviously I would love to appreciate everything right now, but you know, I have a match to play tomorrow. Yeah, they put the mom on last. That’s crazy.”

The Indian men’s hockey team came back from a goal down to win 4-1 against Malaysia in their second Super 4 game of the Asia Cup 2025 at the Rajgir Hockey Stadium in Bihar on Thursday.

It was a landmark day for India captain Harmanpreet Singh as he won his 250th cap for the Indian team.

For the hosts, the goals came from Manpreet Singh (17’), Sukhjeet Singh (19’), Shilanand Lakra (24’) and Vivek Sagar Prasad (38’). Shafiq Hassan (2’) found the back of the net for Malaysia.

It was Malaysia who got the better of the early exchanges as they scored with their first attack when Shafiq Hassan found the back of the net.

Malaysia then continued to dominate possession and kept the hosts under pressure.

Midway through the first quarter, India began to claw back into the match with Dilpreet Singh and Harmanpreet Singh controlling the midfield but Malaysia continued to hold out.

India finished the quarter in the ascendancy but it was Malaysia who led 1-0 at the hooter.

In the first few minutes of the second quarter, India won five back-to-back penalty corners and four were thwarted. The fifth saw Harmanpreet Singh’s shot saved before Manpreet Singh, India’s most experienced player, pounced on the chance and made it 1-1.

A couple of minutes later, Sukhjeet Singh made it 2-1 for the hosts as the momentum shifted.

With the half-hour mark around the corner, Dilpreet Singh picked up the ball in the middle of the park and drove it in towards Shilanand Lakra, who deflected it past the Malaysian goalkeeper to make it 3-1.

Malaysia did attack in the final phases of the first half but India’s defence kept them at bay.

Early in the third quarter, Malaysia won a penalty corner. However, Krishan Bahadur Pathak saved it brilliantly to help maintain India’s lead.

The hosts were looking to impose themselves further and continued to attack. Midway through the quarter, Manpreet set it up for Vivek Sagar Prasad, who promptly made it 4-1.

Malaysia looked to fight back and put together a few good moves as they went in search of their second goal. However, India’s defence held on and ended the quarter with their three-goal lead intact.

Firmly in control of the contest, India dominated possession in the early exchanges of the fourth quarter.

Not willing to give in, Malaysia kept on attacking but India’s defence, marshalled by Harmanpreet Singh, helped slam the door shut on their opponents as the hosts came away with a comfortable 4-1 win on the night.

India will play the People’s Republic of China next in the Super 4 pool stage on Saturday.

David Thorneloe and Mark Ferguson of Pinsent Masons were commenting after the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) opened consultations on a raft of new regulatory rules and guidance relevant to clubs across the top five tiers of English men’s professional football.

“While the recent record-breaking transfer window ended a summer of transition for clubs in respect of their playing squads, the regulatory landscape off the field for clubs in England is continuing to evolve this season,” said Thorneloe, a specialist in public law and the IFR.

The IFR was established under the Football Governance Act 2025, which came into force during the summer.

The IFR’s main objective is to ensure the financial stability and sustainability of English football, ensuring that clubs have sound corporate and financial governance in place. In total, 116 clubs across the Premier League, the Championship, and divisions one and two of the English Football League (EFL), as well as the National League, are subject to its oversight. Safeguarding ‘the heritage of English football’ is also a statutory objective of the IFR.

The two principal tools the IFR will deploy in pursuit of its objectives will be a new licensing regime for clubs, and a new process to approve the appointment of a club’s owners and senior officers.

On Thursday, the IFR opened a new consultation on rules and guidance pertaining to the latter, detailing how it proposed to establish and oversee the new approval regime for club owners, directors, and senior executives (the ODSE regime). It has stated it aims to “shut out rogue owners and promote sound investment in football”.

Further draft guidance relating to the IFR’s information gathering and enforcement powers, as well as on how the IFR proposes to determine the appropriate type and level of sanction, where it exercises its discretion to impose a sanction on a football club, have also been opened to consultation.

All three consultations are open for responses until 6 October 2025.

Ferguson, an expert in public policy at Pinsent Masons, said: “It is important for clubs to engage in the detail – this is their opportunity to influence the IFR and help it develop a framework that is sensible and proportionate for English football.”

Thorneloe added: “The accelerated timescales for these consultations suggest the IFR is planning to introduce the new ODSE regime as soon as possible this season, ahead of its other rules.”

Further consultations, including on guidance relating to the IFR’s new licensing regime, where clubs can expect to learn how much detail they will be expected to include in a corporate governance report in order to meet their licensing obligations, are expected to follow in the coming months.

“The Football Governance Act lays out a high-level framework for clubs to adhere to, as well as regulatory principles, but the real detail of how the new regulatory regime will work will be laid out by the IFR in regulatory rules and guidance,” Thorneloe said. “These new consultations kick-off the regulator’s work in this regard. Though not yet formally confirmed, the expectation is that the IFR will seek to finalise the rest of the new regulatory regime in time for the 2026-27 season.”

Despite publishing its new consultation on the ODSE regime, Thorneloe said clubs have still to obtain clarification on all the circumstances when a person will be said to become an owner of a football club in England under the new regulatory system.

There are five forms of ownership set out in the Act, one of which is that the person has “the right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over the activities of the club (in whole or in part)”.

Thorneloe said: “Clubs face duties to notify changes in ownership, while the owners themselves are subject to suitability assessment and, in certain circumstances, potential removal or disqualification by the regulator, so understanding the full extent of who is in scope of the ODSE regime is an important task for clubs and investors alike. As the IFR points out, however, the detailed guidance on what the concept of ‘significant influence or control’ looks like in practice will be provided by the government, not the regulator. This is something clubs will want to monitor for news on over the coming weeks and months.”