Category: 6. Sports

On a brisk autumnal day in late October, the French women’s national football team kicked off the new Olympic cycle against Jamaica.

The result was a resounding success.

A 3-0 convincing win over the Reggae Girlz showed a fierce intent, and for the newly appointed Laurent Bonadei, it was the perfect start.

Clara Mateo, selected in the number 10 shirt for Bonadei’s first XI, notably looked at ease in the role, running the front line with authority.

When the opportunity came, she opened the scoring with a low drive in the 22nd minute, clenching her fist in conquest before turning to celebrate with teammate Delphine Cascarino.

It was a moment of great pride for the striker. Just a few weeks after not being selected for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, she found herself cheered by a standing ovation. The goal proved to be an apt reward, not only for the occasion, but also for the hungry Mateo, who didn’t stop working on her international dream even after the disappointment.

“It’s true that I had a very good start to the season,” she told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview.

“I was very happy to be back with the French team. When you’re a top-level athlete, you always want to represent your country. To be able to play and score right from the start of the match, I was obviously very happy. And it also showed the work I’d done to bounce back.”

As the rest of the season unfurled, the 27-year-old was similarly productive.

She finished as the top scorer in the French league with 18 goals to her name and was voted the best player by her peers.

“It’s been a successful season. It’s also a season that rewards the work I’ve put in over the last few years,” she continued. “On an individual level, I was there in terms of statistics, and I was consistent and efficient throughout the season. And then to win a trophy with my club was a real source of pride and emotion.”

But how did she rebuild into the form of her life after missing out on the Games?

Olympics.com caught up with the Nantes native at Clairefontaine, just a few days before Les Bleues take on defending champions England at UEFA Women’s EURO 2025, to find out.

WIMBLEDON — Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova showed up to her Wimbledon press conference in an oversized Metallica T-shirt and strawberry-themed nails, still a bit surprised, she admitted, at how well she’s playing after her third-round win over Naomi Osaka.

Not because she’s unseeded and ranked No. 50, or because she’d just celebrated her 34th birthday the day before. Pavlyuchenkova knows the level of tennis she can still produce — she opened the year by reaching her ninth Grand Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open and expected a strong season to follow. But just before Indian Wells, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease, a tick-borne infection.

Wimbledon: Scores | Order of play | Draws

“It was horrible,” Pavlyuchenkova said after defeating Naomi Osaka 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the Wimbledon third round. “I was fatigued, I was very neurotic and irritated. I constantly had headaches — especially in my right temple, it was pressing on my head all the time.

“I had a brain fog. I would start practicing and couldn’t even see clear sometimes — whenever the heart rate was going up, it was hitting me. I never thought it would be such a nasty disease.”

Pavlyuchenkova thinks she contracted the disease last year — but Lyme disease can have an incubation period of several months, and she did not realize straight away,

“My boyfriend had it,” she said. “I literally took the tick off him. It stayed four days under the hair on his neck, I thought it was a brown spot or something, because it’s very little. Then on my hand I had a red spot, but [thought] it could be a mosquito. I felt really bad during preseason, but I thought preseason is usually hard. I was falling asleep at 9 p.m. I thought, probably my age and hard training combination.”

Pavlyuchenkova underwent a six-week course of antibiotics, but continued to struggle in her recovery. Partly, she admits she was “stupid” because she wanted to play so much. She kept coming back too soon, only to suffer setbacks. But with Lyme disease, her doctors’ advice to “listen to her body” was easier said than done.

“I would feel OK, so I would go practice,” she said. “Then I’d almost pass out. Before Eastbourne, I had to take a week off because I started again too early and recovery was very bad. But I didn’t have any crazy symptoms. I was just tired. That’s why it was so difficult, because is it ‘tired’ where it’s still OK to push, or is it ‘tired’ where you need to be in bed?”

Here at SW19, Pavlyuchenkova thinks she’s finally starting to get a handle on the recovery process. More importantly, she’s gained some perspective.

“It feels almost yesterday I was the youngest on tour,” she said. “I was taking everything for granted. Every match I was winning I was like, pffft, just another match I won. Third round of a Slam, pffft. I was not appreciating anything because it was coming too easy. But I started to appreciate every match and every moment. A few months ago I couldn’t even practise. Then you think, maybe you will never have this moment again.

“I also don’t know how much is left in my career because I am very old now. It’s something I want to take to the fullest, so I don’t have regrets afterwards.”

Seven-time Grand Slam tennis champion Venus Williams has opened up for the first time about her long, silent battle with fibroids, a condition she says impacted her health, her sporting career, and her quality of life for years.

In an interview with NBC News aired on Thursday (3 July), Williams, now 44, shared how painful symptoms like intense cramps, nausea, heavy bleeding, and persistent anaemia, became a monthly struggle.

“I was hugging the toilet, waiting for it to pass,” she said.

The four-time Olympic gold medallist has also revealed that although she always knew she had fibroids, she never realised their size or severity. And doctors were not of great help either, as they constantly dismissed her pain as normal.

“As bad as things were for me, crazy amounts of bleeding like you couldn’t imagine … my doctors told me it was normal,” she said.

World No.1 Jannik Sinner and seven-time champion Novak Djokovic are set to continue their march towards a semi-final showdown on Saturday (5 July) in third-round play at Wimbledon 2025 (30 June-13 July).

The pair of Grand Slam champions met last month in the French Open semis, as well, with Sinner emerging victorious over Djokovic, who had won Olympic gold on the same Parisian court last year at Paris 2024.

There’s plenty more to watch on Saturday at The Championships, including reigning women’s champion Barbora Krejcikova and rising women’s star Mirra Andreeva on No.1 Court, while Iga Swiatek has perhaps the toughest test of the day in gritty American veteran Danielle Collins.

It’s been an upset-ridden opening few days at Wimbledon, with 36 seeds crashing out of the first two rounds – a modern record.

Sinner will start Saturday’s play against Spaniard Pedro Martinez on Centre Court, followed by Swiatek-Collins. Djokovic is set to close the evening on the famed tennis venue, facing off against his Serbian countryman Miomir Kecmanovic.

Should Djokovic win he’ll claim a 100th career victory at SW19, joining only Roger Federer and Martina Navratilova in the tournament’s triple-digit win category.

American Ben Shelton meets Marton Fucsovics in the final match on No.1.

Elsewhere, 2022 champion Elena Rybakina, Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medallist Belinda Bencic and veteran Marin Cilic, a 2017 runner-up here, are all in action as players look to book spots in the round of 16.

Read on to find out the start times and all the matches at the Championships.