A roar reverberates around Trafalgar Square as Lando Norris comes into view on a temporary balcony, erected as part of McLaren’s takeover of one of London’s most famous sites.
The place is swarming with papaya fans, who have spent the day soaking up the summer sun and showing their support for the British team.
Norris waves to the crowd and humbly takes the applause and cheers. It’s an example of just how far Norris has come from a shy, little baby-faced teenager who walked in the doors of McLaren’s domineering headquarters in Woking as a junior driver in 2017 to the iconic F1 team’s lead driver and genuine championship contender. It’s been a journey – and now, as is evidenced again today, he’s a big deal.
Two of the last three most recent Wimbledon champions were in action in the second round at the All England Club on Thursday — and both advanced to the third round.
But there were different roads to sealing a spot in the Round of 32 for 2022 winner Elena Rybakina and defending champion Barbora Krejcikova.
What happened
In a No. 1 Court match between two players who peaked at World No. 3 in the PIF WTA Rankings, No. 11 seed Rybakina rolled past Maria Sakkari 6-1, 6-3 to reach the last 32 at Wimbledon for the fifth consecutive year.
After double-faulting twice in the first game of the second set to drop serve, Rybakina didn’t lose another game.
She is now 5-1 against Sakkari, whose ranking has slipped to No. 77, all-time, and has won their last four matches.
Next door on No. 2 Court, No. 17 seed Krejcikova — who dropped the first set of her first-round match against Alexandra Eala of the Philippines on Tuesday — was again stretched to three sets, but had enough to push past American Caroline Dolehide 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.
After two sets in which she hit more errors than winners, Krejcikova saved her best tennis for the third set. She hit 10 winners in eight games, breaking Dolehide twice, and never faced break point herself.
What they said
“I think I was playing well on the baseline,” said Rybakina, who hit 23 winners to Sakkari’s five.
“Overall, I think I found a little bit better my rhythm on the serve later and played pretty confident,” she added, reflecting on losing just two points in her final three service games.
“[It was] definitely a very tough match today,” Krejcikova said. “Very tough conditions that she’s playing. She’s very difficult player. The match was really up and down, but I’m very happy at the end that I was the won that one and I’m through.”
What’s next
Rybakina has, in fact, never lost before the Round of 16 at the All England Club. For a return trip to the second week, she will face either No. 23 seed Clara Tauson of Denmark or Anna Kalinskaya.
Krejcikova, meanwhile, has what she dubbed an “interesting” match against No. 10 seed Emma Navarro next. They have never played previously.
While admitting to not watching any of Krejcikova’s championship run at SW19 12 months ago, Navarro added: “She’s confident on this surface, and she knows she has what it takes to go all the way. But from my end I feel like I have a lot of tools and the ability to sort of combat that.”
Liverpool led the tributes to Jota, saying the club was “devastated” by such an “unimaginable loss”.
He scored 65 goals in 182 appearances for Liverpool, helping them win the FA Cup and League Cup in 2022 and the Premier League title last season.
The club put out further statements later on Thursday, with boss Slot paying tribute to a player who had become “a loved one to all” at the club.
The Dutchman added: “Someone who made others feel good about themselves just by being with them. A person who cared deeply for his family.”
Slot said he last spoke to Jota to congratulate him on Portugal winning the Nations League and wish him luck for his wedding.
“In many ways, it was a dream summer for Diogo and his family, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that it should end like this,” he added.
Slot said Liverpool and their supporters are “all with” Jota’s family and the “the same can be said of the wider family of football”.
A statement from the the club’s owners and leadership group, Billy Hogan, John Henry, Tom Werner and Mike Gordon, said they have been left “numb with grief” as they offered condolences to Jota’s family.
They added: “Beyond the player that we all knew was a wonderfully humble human being, he was sincere, intelligent, funny, tough and created connections with people everywhere he went. He had a zest for life that was utterly contagious.”
Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes and Fenway Sports Group chief executive of football Michael Edwards said in statement: “This is a tragedy that transcends Liverpool football club.”
They added the club will look to honour Jota with the “respect and affection” he deserves in the coming days, but for now “express a love that is filled with deep sorrow and pain” after losing someone “truly irreplaceable”.
Michael Venus and Nikola Mektic came through a tense opening match in the men’s doubles at Wimbledon, despite a large crowd cheering against them.
They have defeated the British wildcard recipients Lui Maxted and Connor Thompson 6-4 7-6(4) on Court 8 to advance to the second round.
Although on paper this looked like a good match-up for the tournament’s No 8 seeds, they were pushed hard by the young Brits, with just one break of serve in the opening set.
When Mektic was serving at 4-5 in the second set, he came under pressure and needed to save a set-point, which he successfully did.
Maxted had a break point to defend in the following game and the set ended up going into a tiebreak.
Venus double faulted at 2-3, to give the British team a good lead at the change of ends.
But Venus and Mektic won the next four points, to edge close to the victory and on match point the Croatian hit an unreturnable serve.
Despite playing against two opponents who aren’t yet playing on the Tour, Venus said he and Mektic expected this to be a tough match.
“They both played college in the States and you can see the calibre of the guys coming out of college these days, with Cam (Norrie) and Jacob Fearnley,” Venus said.
“So their level is good and we thought it would be a tough match.
“We didn’t know too much about them, so we were trying to feel things out and figure things out during the match.
“I thought we took care of our service games really well,” he added.
“Obviously, got a break in the first set, and we had a couple kind of half chances in the second set.
“Then fought off a set point at 5-4 and had a couple break points in at 5-5 and didn’t get that and got down in the breaker. It was a terrible double fault! Then managed to right the ship and get through.”
Something both teams needed to deal with was the earlier than expected time for the match.
It was scheduled to be the fourth match on Court 8, so it could have been early evening that the players went on. However the three prior matches were all over quickly and Venus said they had to rush their preparations.
“I think it was 2.55pm they called us,” Venus said.
“We finished warming up at 2pm. We saw what the scores were and everything was going fast, so quickly had some food, then showered, got changed and got everything ready, and then was straight on.
“So it was all quite rushed. I thought the very earliest we would have gone on looking at the schedule would have been 3.30pm if the matches went super fast. But I was anticipating it would be more like 4.30-5pm.
Although Venus said it was a rush for himself and Mektic, he felt it would have been the same for Maxted and Thompson.
“It’s a fine line, especially when you’re playing fourth on,” he said.
“You don’t want to be here sitting around all day and then matches go long. At the same time, you don’t want to be rushing. So it’s always a tricky decision.”
Magda and Pernille: Rivals on the field & pioneers off it
One thing that both can agree on, regardless of the shirt they wear, is that football is just football – nothing more.
Away from the pitch they are planning a wedding, building a life together; that is not necessarily forgotten in 90 minutes, rather put to one side as they battle it out.
That sentiment is echoed in the openness of which they live their lives, something that resonates with fans globally.
Such a stark contrast between the men and women’s game is not lost on them, either, recognising the importance of having a space to be themselves.
“It’s a totally different environment to men’s football,” suggests Harder.
Eriksson follows on: “Players can be themselves, love who they love, and if you come into the women’s football environment, you have to buy into that.
“I think we have been quite lucky, that there is so much acceptance, whereas in men’s football there is a culture that still has to change… it takes time.”
Nothing quite emphasises their point like the kiss they shared at the 2019 World Cup, Magda going over to the stands where Pernille was cheering her on – a photo taken by an attentive photographer that captured the hearts of adoring fans.
An act so simple, yet a reaction so monumental.
“We’ve always just been natural, not so much thinking of being inspirations together, putting pictures up of each other or anything like that,” Harder told the Guardian not long after the image circulated the internet.
“But when we saw that photo and the comments around it, then it was really something; we had a lot of messages from a lot of young people, people of our age, but older people also.”
Eriksson added: “I think that’s when I felt the demand for role models in that way, because of how big it was and how many people wrote to me on Instagram that they looked up to us and how much we’d helped them.
“That’s when I understood that we’re really powerful together. Before, we hadn’t really seen ourselves as that.”
Third in the overall standings and winner of the white jersey on his first attempt last year, Remco Evenepoel will line up at the start in Lille with the desire to continue his progress, while acknowledging the difficulty of the task ahead: “My goal is to win the three Grand Tours in my career. I have one in the pocket, so two to go. I was third last year, so I think the ability is there, but Tadej and Jonas are of course the top favourites this year again. I’ll try to make it harder for them but it’s very difficult to say where I am exactly compared to them.”
“The stages in the Pyrenees and the Alps are very hard, with lots of elevation, and it comes towards the end of the week, so we’ll feel the fatigue. I think Col de la Loze, with its 27 kilometres of ascent, will be very painful. But the other stages are not necessarily easier, it depends on how we race”, Evenepoel added after discussing his quest to become the best climber possible after he was dominated by Pogacar, Vingegaard and Lipowitz in the Critérium du Dauphiné: “The work for the mountains is not something that happens over ten days, it’s a matter of months, and even years, especially for someone who is not physiologically a climber. I work about this all the time and I’m happy with the sensations I had at the Belgian nationals. I hope it will allow me to finish up there in the standings.”
PRIMOZ ROGLIC : “I DREAM TO BE THE BEST”
For his seventh participation in the Tour de France, Primoz Roglic continues his quest to complete his collection of victories with the most prestigious race in cycling, having already triumphed four times in the Vuelta (2019-20-21-24) and once in the Giro (2023). The first requirement will be to break the curse that has plagued him for several years, having abandoned the Tour in his last three participations due to crashes. Since 2019, the Slovenian has competed in 13 Grand Tours – each time, he either finished on the final podium (8 times) or abandoned (5 times).
“To compete in the Tour, you need first to survive and I’m a good example of that in the last years”, Roglic acknowledged. “What matters is how you get on with it. I’m 36 now, I have some unfinished business with the Tour, but I can also say winning it or not won’t change who I am. It’s a privilege to still be there with younger riders and to fight with them. I don’t really need to point them out. The way Tadej [Pogacar] is riding, and also Jonas [Vingegaard] and Remco [Evenepoel]…”
“Being who I am, you dream, you fight, you work to be the best”, Roglic added, also backing his young teammate Florian Lipowitz, who recently finished 3rd of the Critérium du Dauphiné: “He is really strong and he showed how much of a high level he has. So why not do the same here in the Tour de France?”
HUNTING THE POLKA DOTS: “IT WILL BE DIFFICULT IF JONAS OR TADEJ WINS AT COL DE LA LOZE”
On the 50th anniversary of the polka-dot jersey, the battle for the King of the Mountains standings will be fought over 67 categorised ascents: 9 HC summits, 4 cat.-1, 12 cat.-2, 16 cat.-3 and 26 cat.-4, granting a maximum of 358 points from Lille Métropole to the Champs-Élysées, via Col de la Loze (the highest summit of this Tour, 2,304m) and Côte de la Butte Montmartre (the final ascent of the race, 128m). As usual, long range attackers will try to get the better of the GC contenders, in line with Richard Carapaz’s triumph last year.
The Ecuadorian climber was set to defend his polka-dot jersey before he fell sick just before the start in Lille. The peloton of the Tour 2025 will thus feature four former winners: Tadej Pogacar (2020, 2021), Jonas Vingegaard (2022), Julian Alaphilippe (2018) and Warren Barguil (2017).
Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) hopes to follow their tracks: “I’m not gonna fight for a top-15 in GC, I’d rather go for a stage win and potentially the polka-dot jersey. I had the opportunity to help Giulio Ciccone win it in 2023 and it was something special to see him on the podium in Paris. I thought he looked cool in that jersey, let’s see if it’s also the case with me! There aren’t too many points in the first week [34 in the first 9 stages] and then there are lots of big mountain stages. Points are doubled at Col de la Loze [40 points at the finish of stage 18] and I can imagine Jonas or Tadej winning that stage… It would make things difficult but we’ll have to see.”
FLYING NEW COLOURS IN LILLE
The team presentation on Thursday evening at the Grand Place in Lille was the first opportunity for fans to see the new kits that riders will wear in this Tour. More than half of the participating teams are sporting new jerseys in this edition. In some cases, the change is radical.
Visma – Lease a Bike emphasizes black with a design called “The Swarm”, which features the names of fans who bought it in the pre-sale, while Israel-Premier Tech will combine blue with electric pink in a nod to its bicycle brand, Factor. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s new kit is white, blue and red, referencing the French football team in a Tour that takes place entirely on French soil.
Some redesigns are more subtle. TotalEnergies’ new jersey pays tribute to their general manager Jean-René Bernaudeau by picking up the chequered pattern of the legendary Peugeot team with which he finished sixth in the 1981 edition. UAE Team Emirates draws inspiration from the “anahata”, or heart chakra. Other changes allow the inclusion of new brands, such as Ineos Grenadiers and its new sponsor TotalEnergies, as well as Groupama-FDJ, Tudor, EF Education-Easy Post, Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale, Lidl-Trek and Lotto.
Oscar Piastri has predicted a potential multi-team battle at the British Grand Prix, with the Australian suggesting that it will not just be a fight between himself and McLaren team mate Lando Norris.
A race-long scrap played out between the pair last time out in Austria, in which Norris fended off the challenge from Piastri to claim his third win of the season. Piastri, however, still leads the championship standings by a margin of 15 points.
When asked if he was ready for another battle with Norris this weekend at his team mate’s home track, Piastri smiled: “Let’s wait and see. I think it’s going to be an interesting weekend – Silverstone always is. The weather’s always a factor and it looks like it will be again this weekend.
“Let’s wait and see, I don’t think it will just be two McLarens this time. I think Mercedes will probably be quick, Red Bull honestly you never really know but they’ve been quick here in the past, Ferrari as well looked to be a little bit stronger in Austria, so let’s see.
“It’s a track I always enjoy, and I’m expecting it to be a good fight with whoever it is.”
A sequence has emerged during the campaign so far in which, whenever Norris has won a race, Piastri has proven victorious at the following Grand Prix.
In terms of whether that might be on his mind during the weekend ahead, the 24-year-old answered: “I have found the same pattern as you, but there’s nothing conscious about it. I think it’s just been coincidence.
“I always go into every weekend, just trying to do the best that I can. I felt like maybe in China there was a bit of extra motivation but more because of how painful Melbourne was, more than anything else.
“I just go into every weekend trying to do my best, go in with the best state of mind that I can and I think I’m always learning things about myself, about how I need the car as well, and [I’m] learning lessons all the time.”
And given the psychological element at play in the championship fight, Piastri was also quizzed on how important it would be to beat Norris at the Briton’s home track.
“I don’t really think so,” the seven-time race winner said. “Every driver wants to win their home race, but at the end of the day it’s only worth the same amount of points as everywhere else. Monaco is kind of a similar feeling but, yes, would I love to win this weekend? Of course.
“So let’s see what happens. It’s a track I enjoy, a track I’ve had good success at in the past, so hopefully can be a good weekend.”
Pakistan Champions’ Shoaib Malik (centre) celebrates taking a wicket with teammates during their World Championship of Legends semi-final against the West Indies at The County Ground in Northampton on July 12, 2024. — Instagram/wclpakistanchampions
Runners-up of the first World Championship of Legends (WCL), Pakistan Champions, unveiled their jersey for the second season of the event, scheduled to be held in Birmingham later this month.
The star-studded franchise revealed its new emblem on the social media platform X, accompanied by the caption: “Proud to unveil the official jersey of the Pakistan Champions for the World Championship of Legends 2025.”
Following a first successful season last year, the WCL T20 League is ready to come back for its second one in the July–August window.
From six countries — India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, England, and the West Indies—the tournament includes cricketing legends.
In the first season, Pakistan Champions ran an amazing campaign with overwhelming victories in the group stage.
Their trip started with a victory against Australia, after which they crushed the West Indies. They posted 243/4 in a memorable high-scoring battle against their arch rivals India before limiting the Men in Blue to 175/9.
Led by former Pakistan skipper Younis Khan, the squad kept up their remarkable form with a victory against England; their only groupstage loss came against South Africa.
Securing a 20-run win to book a place in the final against India, the Men in Green progressed to the semifinals where they overcame the West Indies once again.
Pakistan set a target of 157 in a tight final, but India pursued it down in 19.1 overs to take the championship with a five-wicket victory.
For the unversed, on July 18, Pakistan Champions will play England Champions at the famous Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham to start the second season of the WCL.
Scheduled for July 20 at the same location is the much awaited conflict between archrivals India and Pakistan.
Complete Tournament Schedule
League Stage
July 18 (Friday): England Champions vs Pakistan Champions
July 19 (Saturday): West Indies Champions vs South Africa Champions
July 19 (Saturday): England Champions vs Australia Champions
July 20 (Sunday): India Champions vs Pakistan Champions
July 22 (Tuesday): England Champions vs West Indies Champions
July 22 (Tuesday): India Champions vs South Africa Champions
July 23 (Wednesday): Australia Champions vs West Indies Champions
July 24 (Thursday): South Africa Champions vs England Champions
July 25 (Friday): Pakistan Champions vs South Africa Champions
July 26 (Saturday): India Champions vs Australia Champions
July 26 (Saturday): Pakistan Champions vs West Indies Champions
July 27 (Sunday): South Africa Champions vs Australia Champions
July 27 (Sunday): India Champions vs England Champions
July 29 (Tuesday): Australia Champions vs Pakistan Champions
July 29 (Tuesday): India Champions vs West Indies Champions
Knockout Stage
July 31 (Thursday): Semi-Final 1 – SF1 vs SF4 (Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham)
July 31 (Thursday): Semi-Final 2 – SF2 vs SF3 (Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham)
August 2 (Saturday): Final (Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham)
