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      UEFA will strip St. Petersburg of the Champions League final.

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      European soccer’s governing body is convening an emergency meeting of its top board members on Friday after deciding to strip St. Petersburg, Russia, from hosting the Champions League final, the biggest club game of the year, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The governing body, UEFA, had resisted taking the measure earlier this week, even after the country moved into two rebel-held parts of Ukraine and after its president, Vladimir V. Putin, announced Russia had formally recognized them as independent republics. UEFA took the measure after Russia’s invasion began early Thursday.The game, on May 28, was to be played in a stadium built ahead of the 2018 World Cup and financed by the Russian energy giant Gazprom, a major UEFA sponsor since 2012. In 2021, UEFA added Gazprom’s chairman, Alexander Dyukov, to its board, known as the Executive Committee. It is unclear if Dyukov will attend the meeting, which will be a video call.UEFA said in a statement that its president, Aleksander Ceferin, a Slovene lawyer, decided to call for the meeting “following the evolution of the situation between Russia and Ukraine in the last 24 hours.”“UEFA shares the international community’s significant concern for the security situation developing in Europe and strongly condemns the ongoing Russian military invasion in Ukraine,” it said.Speculation began this week about potential sites for a relocated game, with the British news media calling for it to be played in London. Last year’s final was played between two English teams, Manchester City and Chelsea, which is bankrolled by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.The Champions League final has faced disruption since the outbreak of the coronavirus, with the tournament’s denouement played out in Portugal for two straight years. Other sites outside the United Kingdom remain a possibility, including Istanbul, which had to make do with hosting rights for 2023 after giving up the final game in 2020 and 2021.The British government had been the most vocal in calling for the game to be taken away from Russia, with officials actively lobbying the soccer authorities.“I have serious concerns about the sporting events due to be held in Russia, such as the Champions League final, and will discuss with the relevant governing bodies,” Nadine Dorries, the British government minister responsible for sports, wrote on Twitter.Fan groups, too, had called for the game’s relocation.A banner advertising the Champions League final at the Krestovsky stadium.Anatoly Maltsev/EPA, via Shutterstock“On this tragic day, our thoughts are with everyone in Ukraine, our friends, colleagues, members, & their loved ones,” the Fans Supporters Europe group tweeted hours after Russia’s invasion had started. “Given the events unfolding, we expect an imminent announcement from UEFA on the relocation of the Champions League final.”Soccer federations from Poland, Czech Republic and Sweden have written to FIFA calling for Russia to be banned from hosting playoff games for the Qatar World Cup. Poland is due to meet Russia in Moscow next month, and if Russia wins, it will face a final eliminator against the winner of the game between the Czechs and Sweden also in Russia.Gazprom’s influence extends beyond UEFA. Officials from the company — which controls Russia’s top club, F.C. Zenit — sit in other influential positions, like the board of the European Club Association, a representative group for top clubs. Gazprom has since 2007 also sponsored one of Germany’s leading teams, Schalke, an association that now appears to be at an end.“Following recent developments, FC Schalke 04 have decided to remove the logo of main sponsor GAZPROM from the club’s shirts. It will be replaced by lettering reading ‘Schalke 04’ instead,” the club said on Twitter on Thursday.UEFA will also decide on the fate of teams from Russia still involved in its competitions. Zenit was on Thursday to play the second game of its two-leg playoff against Real Betis in Spain in the Europa League, Europe’s second-tier club tournament.The crisis has also led to mounting speculation about the future of Abramovich’s decade-long ownership of Chelsea. He was not named in a first tranche of Russian billionaires subject to British government sanctions this week. But some lawmakers said he, and Alisher Usmanov, a billionaire whose holding company USM is the biggest partner of another Premier League team, Everton, should be added to the sanctions list.Chris Bryant, a lawmaker in the opposition Labour Party, told Parliament on Thursday that Abramovich should be “no longer able to own a football club in this country.”Bryant criticized the government for allowing Abramovich to continue doing business in the United Kingdom after saying he had seen official government documents from 2019 that described the Russian as having “links to the Russian state and his public association with corrupt activity and practices.”“That is nearly three years ago and yet remarkably little has been done in relation,” Bryant said. Abramovich previously faced difficulties entering Britain after new visa restrictions were imposed on Russian businessmen in 2018. A spokesman for Chelsea declined to comment. More

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      Who Needs Practice? Not Alexander Bublik

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      The unseeded player representing Kazakhstan would rather hone his game during Wimbledon matches than overwork his shoulder with practice serves. Whatever works.WIMBLEDON, England — Grigor Dimitrov said he had come to Wimbledon, where he reached the semifinals in 2014, “with great hopes just to play some more matches just to get myself a little bit of a rhythm.” More

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      Euro 2020: Denmark Stuns Russia to Reach Round of 16

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      A 4-1 victory over Russia sent Denmark to the knockout stages, a stunning turn in a tournament that began with the collapse of Denmark’s star, Christian Eriksen.Denmark’s players gathered in a circle on the field at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen and stared intently at a staff member’s phone. They must have known, by then, that they had qualified for the last 16 of the European Championship, but they wanted to be sure. They wanted to see the score confirmed, officially.The Danes had come into their final group-stage game on Monday needing the dice to roll in their favor to make it through. They required a win against Russia on home soil, and for Belgium to beat Finland in St. Petersburg. That they had a chance at all, though — that their coach, Kasper Hjulmand, could tell his players that this was the start, not the end, of their tournament — was remarkable in itself.It is not yet 10 days since Hjulmand admitted that his players were “broken,” traumatized by the experience of seeing their friend and teammate Christian Eriksen collapse on the field during their opening game against Finland, forced to stand guard around him as his heart was restarted as he lay motionless on the turf, and to accompany him from the field as he was taken to a hospital.Denmark’s players formed a worried circle around Christian Eriksen on June 12. Later, they wondered if they should have played at all.Pool photo by Friedemann VogelThey had to comfort his distraught partner, and then endure the most agonizing wait to discover if he was out of danger. Soccer’s place in the pecking order was illustrated by the squad’s insistence it would not decide whether that game would continue or not until the players had word about Eriksen’s health.Only when they were told that he was conscious and speaking at the hospital did they press on, playing the game the same evening because — as Hjulmand said — they could not bear to face a night of sleepless worry and then have to start again the next day. They played, and lost. A few days later, in front of an emotional crowd of about 25,000 fans at Parken, they played and lost again, this time to Belgium.That was hardly surprising. Hjulmand had said that counseling would be available to all of his squad, should they feel the need, but it would take some time for that to have an impact. This was not the sort of blow you shake off in time for the next game.Still, Denmark had one more chance. It had taken the lead, through Eriksen’s replacement, Mikkel Damsgaard, and doubled it through Yussuf Poulsen, but Finland was still stubbornly holding on in St. Petersburg. And then a roar swept around Parken: News had filtered across the Baltic that Belgium had scored. Only, as it turned out, the goal was ruled out — after a short delay — for offside.Defender Andreas Christensen scored Denmark’s third goal.Pool photo by Stuart FranklinAs Denmark was absorbing that blow, Russia won — and converted — a penalty kick. Everything hung in the balance once more. Again, Denmark was made to wait.A few minutes later, there was another roar from the stands, this one a little more reticent. This time Belgium had taken the lead. This time the goal counted. Denmark could relax. When Andreas Christensen scored a third, and Joakim Maehle a fourth, the team and the stadium and the nation could celebrate. Maehle ran to the crowd, holding up the numbers 1 and 0 with his fingers: Eriksen’s jersey number.“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” Maehle told the Danish broadcaster DR.Denmark’s prize is a round of 16 match on Saturday, against Wales, in Amsterdam, at the stadium where Eriksen made his name. It does not matter at all, not in the grand scheme of things, but still, it means the world. More

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      Aslan Karatsev of Russia Continues an Unlikely Run at Australian Open

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAslan Karatsev of Russia Continues an Unlikely Run at Australian OpenThe unknown Russian became one of the few players to make the semifinal of a Grand Slam after surviving the qualifying tournament.Aslan Karatsev of Russia serving in his Men’s Singles Quarterfinals match against Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria during Day 9 of the  Australian Open at Melbourne Park on Tuesday.Credit…Cameron Spencer/Getty ImagesFeb. 16, 2021Updated 9:26 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — He is the mystery man who few in the sport had heard of just days ago. But Aslan Karatsev of Russia has landed in the semifinals of the Australian Open.Karatsev on Tuesday became one of the few players to make the final four of a Grand Slam after surviving the qualifying tournament when he beat an ailing Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in four sets, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.He will face Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1, in the semifinals. Djokovic beat Alexander Zverev in four sets in their quarterfinal on Tuesday night.Karatsev, 27, was born in Russia and moved to Israel when he was 3. His maternal grandfather is Jewish. He then returned to Russia for his teenage years to pursue better tennis training. That began a meandering journey back and forth across Europe, with stops in Moscow, Germany, Spain and Belarus, where he has been training for three years.“I was moving around too much,” he said on Tuesday night following his victory.He has been playing in the tennis hinterlands for several years with little success and even considered quitting in 2017 when he was suffering from a knee injury. He had never qualified for a Grand Slam before this tournament. He won three straight matches at the Australian Open qualifying event in Doha to win a spot in the main event and came in ranked No. 114 in the world. He has never been ranked higher than No. 111.He has won $618,354 during his professional career. In this tournament, he has already secured a $662,000 paycheck. Another victory would boost it to $1.17 million.Dimitrov, the No. 18 seed, appeared to have the match under control after the first set but suffered back spasms beginning late in the second set. The pain and stiffness worsened in the third set, and he appeared to be on the edge of retiring for the rest of the match, but returned to the court for the fourth set after receiving medical treatment.He said his back initially spasmed on Monday and he struggled to put on his socks before the match. “We just couldn’t fix it in time,” Dimitrov said.Just four other players have made the semifinals of a Grand Slam after getting through the qualifying event.Ahead of the Australian Open, Karatsev played doubles for Team Russia in the ATP Cup, a team event in which players represent their countries. Russia won the competition, but not because of Karatsev, who lost all three matches in which he played, with two different partners.His teammates, however, noticed that he was playing as well as they had ever seen, and yet none of them would have predicted anything like this.“We felt like he could do something amazing,” Daniil Medvedev, Russia’s top player and the No. 4 seed in the Australian Open, said when Karatsev made it through the fourth round. “To be honest, being in your first Grand Slam main draw? Making quarters is something exceptional. He’s not over yet.”He certainly is not.After his win set up a meeting with Karatsev in the semifinals, Djokovic said he had not seen Karatsev play before this tournament but has been impressed the last 10 days.“Very strong guy physically, moves well, has a lot of firepower from the back of the court, great backhand,” Djokovic said. “The Russian school of tennis.”Karatsev was already the lowest-ranked player to reach the quarterfinals at the Australian Open since Patrick McEnroe in 1991. Karatsev was the first qualifier to make the final eight at a Grand Slam in 10 years.Karatsev’s magical run in Melbourne began with two victories over lesser players last week, though his second-round win over Egor Gerasimov of Belarus hinted at bigger things to come. Karatsev beat Gerasimov, ranked No. 79 in the world, 6-0, 6-1, 6-0. After that, he dispatched eighth-seeded Diego Schwartzman in three sets. It was an impressive win, but Schwartzman’s best results have come on clay rather than the slick, hard courts at Melbourne Park.In the fourth round, Karatsev stormed back from two sets down to defeat Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 20 seed, 3-6, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4. Auger-Aliassime is one of the world’s top young players and looked as if he would easily handle Karatsev after the first two sets.Then Karatsev took a bathroom break. He used the toilet and splashed some water on his face; and when he returned to the court, he found his comfort zone. He began firing aces and winners on his serve with abandon and pushed Auger-Aliassime farther and farther back into the court with his deep groundstrokes.Karatsev looked to be following a similar script on a warm, humid Tuesday afternoon.“I was a bit nervous at the start,” he said.The nerves were certainly justified, but the court he was playing on had an unlikely resemblance to the countless courts where he has competed for years in lower-tier events in front of rows of empty bleachers. On Friday night, health officials instituted a five-day lockdown after more than a dozen people tested positive for Covid-19. There were no spectators other than a few journalists, tournament employees and the players’ support teams.No one other than Dimitrov and the few people around him knew that he was taking the court at less than 100 percent. Dimitrov, one of the most talented and physically gifted players on the tour, had breezed through his first four matches, including his three-set dismantling of Dominic Thiem, the No. 3 seed.Karatsev’s nerves showed in the first set, when he made 19 unforced errors and double-faulted three times. In the second set, though, he started standing toe to toe with Dimitrov, playing longer points, sending balls deep into the court and forcing Dimitrov to exert himself and put stress on his back. By the end of the third set, Dimitrov could barely stand.Less than an hour later, Karatsev was in the semifinals.“I’m trying to enjoy the moment, not thinking about it too much, just playing from round to round,” he said.Can he win the tournament?“We will see,” he said. “How can I say?”As unlikely as it might seem, Dimitrov said he was not surprised to see Karatsev, who four months ago had a goal of making the Top 100, surging to the final four.“He’s a great player,” Dimitrov said of Karatsev. “To be here, clearly you’ve done something right. You’ve put in the work; you’ve gone through the qualifiers, went through tough and good matches, built up confidence. There’s so many positives, so why not for him to go further?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Daniil Medvedev Finds Another Way of Playing Professional Tennis

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDaniil Medvedev Finds Another Way of Playing Professional TennisHow is this elite tennis player different from all other tennis players? Let us count the ways. But can he win a Grand Slam title?Daniil Medvedev has carved out a quirky game in a sport driven by powerful strokes.Credit…David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 16, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — Men’s tennis in 2021 can feel like a fairly homogeneous affair. Big people. Big forehands. Big serves. A lot of guys seemingly trying to hit the ball through the wall behind the back of the court, even on their one-handed backhands.And then there is Daniil Medvedev, a lanky Russian who provides any number of answers to the question of how he’s different from other tennis players.Where to begin?There’s the bizarre service motion, in which Medvedev bounces the ball twice, then tosses it in the air without first bringing it into contact with his racket (try it sometime — it’s super awkward). In an era of ripped physiques built for power, Medvedev takes the court with a wiry 6-foot-6 frame and a slouching posture that seems like the creation of a caricature artist. Often, he likes to turn a furious baseline rally on its head with a sudden, deadly drop shot from the back of the court. Or a moonball. Or a twisting, beguiling slice.Medvedev has honed a quirky and creative mix of spins and surprise. He seems to care little about trying to dictate the terms of a match, and more about deducing which weapons the match requires and forever looking out for another trick.“That’s what I work on in practice, to have a lot of different weapons,” Medvedev said earlier this month as he was leading Russia to the ATP Cup, in which players compete for their countries. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the opponent is too good, sometimes you don’t play good. It depends. It’s tennis.”Medvedev’s approach has made him the player who now elicits the lusty praise of the tennis aesthetes. Jim Courier, the former world No. 1 and two-time Australian Open champion, has called Medvedev a “shape shifter” because of his talent for taking points where no one thought they would go and finding the undiscovered angle. John McEnroe, the seven-time Grand Slam champion and ESPN analyst who was a favorite among tennis snobs of a previous generation who could tolerate his temper tantrums, said Medvedev was his favorite player to watch right now.“He’s like a chess master,” McEnroe said during a recent conference call. “He just plays old school a little bit. He’s strategizing, he’s thinking ahead. These are the types of guys that we need.”Whether tennis gets them remains to be seen. So many players in the emerging generation rely so heavily on their cannon-like serves and forehands. Also, Medvedev, who does have a booming serve and the ability to blast groundstrokes when he needs to, is already 25 and has yet to win a Grand Slam title. Each year that passes without a major championship will only increase the questions about whether his creativity can prevail during repeated five-set showdowns in the biggest tournaments. (It takes seven consecutive victories to claim a Grand Slam title.)Medvedev hitting a return against Mackenzie McDonald in the fourth round.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMedvedev’s next test occurs Wednesday, when he faces Andrey Rublev, a fellow Russian, close friend and tennis alter ego, in an Australian Open quarterfinal. Rublev rarely sees a ball he does not want to pound into oblivion, or a point he does not want to end as quickly as possible.At 23, Rublev is two years younger than Medvedev and grew up playing junior tournaments against him in Russia. For a long time Rublev, seeded No. 8, and Karen Khachanov, 24, the third member of Russia’s latest golden generation, were better than Medvedev. The rise for Medvedev came in 2018 and 2019, when he nearly beat Rafael Nadal in the 2019 United States Open final.“He reads the game really well,” Rublev said of Medvedev. “It’s amazing, the patience he has to stay so long in the rallies, to not rush, to take the time, because in the end these little details, they make him who he is.”Russia is the only country with two players in the top 10. Khachanov gives it three in the top 20. Aslan Karatsev, 27, another Russian ranked No. 114, came out of nowhere to make the quarterfinals here in his first Grand Slam tournament.Medvedev comes into the quarterfinal on perhaps the best roll of his career. He has won 18 consecutive singles matches. He won the ATP Tour finals in London in November, pulling off the nifty trick of beating the world’s top three players — Novak Djokovic, Nadal and Dominic Thiem — in a single tournament. For Russia at the ATP Cup, he beat Alexander Zverev of Germany, a 2020 U.S. Open finalist, in a tight, three-set match in the semifinal round.Medvedev spent his early childhood in Moscow and played few sports other than tennis growing up. He worshiped Russia’s last golden generation, which included Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who were in their prime when he was a young child. He moved to France to train as a teenager and became fluent in English and French.Medvedev could be heard screaming at his coach, Gilles Cervara of France, in French during his third-round match against Filip Krajinovic of Serbia, as he frittered away a two-set lead before recovering to win the final set, 6-0.As Krajinovic controlled the match in the third and fourth sets, Medvedev screamed at Cervara — who is prohibited from coaching during the match — to leave him alone and just let him play.It was a flash of Medvedev’s personality from a few years ago, when, as he put it, he “could go crazy” at any moment.“Sometimes that can still get out, and usually it doesn’t help me to play good,” he said.Ultimately, it’s not clear how much any guidance can really affect such an idiosyncratic player and person, someone inclined to go his own way.For instance, Medvedev has spoken with nutritionists about his diet. He is not so strikingly thin because he watches what he eats. He has the appetite of a horse and one of those metabolisms that allows him to sample all the offerings at a Viennese table and never gain a pound, which is good, because he has a major weakness for desserts. Tiramisù, pie, candy; if it is sweet, he wants it.“Many people hate me probably for this,” he said. “I know that with age it can change, so I need to be careful about this because you never know when it’s coming.”He swears he cuts back on his sugar intake during Grand Slam tournaments, but he also said he had several cakes waiting for him in his room for after the tournament.He is hoping the cakes can wait a few more days and serve as a reward for him and his unique style.“I’m 25. I am playing good tennis,” he said. “I have zero Slams.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More