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Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner play tennis. Their Australian Open rivals see a different sport

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Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner play tennis. Their Australian Open rivals see a different sport

MELBOURNE, Australia — Just as it did 12 months ago, the tennis gods gave the Australian Open the men’s singles draw it craved. On the steps of Margaret Court Arena, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz emerged in opposite halves, setting up the possibility of a first Grand Slam final duel for the matchup that defines tennis on the ATP Tour.

The 23-year-old Italian and the 21-year-old Spaniard split the four majors 2-2 in 2024. They hit the ball as hard as anyone and cover every inch of the court, laterally and vertically, inside the lines and out.

For their opponents, their tennis feels like a different sport to the one they signed up to at the start of their journey to the professional circuit.

They also do not lack for confidence.

“I’m an ambitious guy,” Alcaraz said during a visit to New York in December for an exhibition at Madison Square Garden. “I’m sure sooner or later I’m going to be the Australian Open champion.”

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Sinner said his goal last year was to gain a better understanding of what he might be able to achieve in his career. With two Grand Slams triumphs and the No. 1 ranking he got some hints, though ticking those boxes was not a specific goal.

“It’s going to be the same next year,” he said after winning the ATP Tour Finals in Turin and finishing the season 73-6. “Whatever we can catch, we take, and the rest we learn.”

Sinner and Alcaraz have intermittently played tennis like it’s a fantastical computer game since their 2022 U.S. Open quarterfinal and its five hours and 15 minutes of spellbinding shotmaking. In 2024, they fully reconfigured the sport, overtaking the baseline call and response honed by Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic and the reactive development of players like Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev, who arrived armed with huge serves and counterpunching groundstrokes.

Sinner and Alcaraz have reconfigured tennis into a hyper-aggressive game of chicken. To hit a neutral ball is to be on defense and to be on defense is to lose (against each other) or to steal the point (against pretty much everybody else). Their ATP Tour rivals, from Zverev and Medvedev to Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud and all the way down, are at a loss. The tennis they knew has vanished before their eyes.

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Tennis mailbag part one: Challenging Sinner and Alcaraz, baseline boredom, coaching change


Great players win lots of matches and championships. The greatest ever players change how their sport is played, redrawing the tennis court to create new shots and angles that few thought were possible before. Think of the way the basketball stars Steph Curry and Caitlin Clark normalized three-pointers from way beyond the stripe, extending defenses, creating offensive space where it wasn’t supposed to exist, and redesigning the toolkit that top-level basketball required.

Sinner and Alcaraz are having a similar impact on their sport. Tennis courts are still 78 feet long and 27 feet wide. They have not grown. These two just make it seem like they have.

In most tennis rallies, the player that forces their opponent into or outside the tramlines — where the width of the singles court expires — is likely to win the point. Either the ball won’t come back because the angle is too sharp, or it will come back soft and floating, ready to be dispatched into space.

There is a massive difference in what happens when Sinner and Alcaraz are outside the tramlines. This supposed zone of no return is where they can show off. It’s where Alcaraz can display his blazing speed and rocketing forehands blasted on a full sprint over or around the net post. It’s where Sinner embodies the junior skiing champion he once was, bending low as he swings his racket then pushing back into the court like he has just come around a slalom gate on icy slope.

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Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have pushed each other to extremes since their 2022 U.S. Open quarterfinal (Julian Finney / Getty Images)

Far more often than the rest of the tour, Sinner and Alcaraz are winning points or getting on the attack from places where they are supposed to lose. It has created a paradox, most visibly with Alcaraz, in which stressing and pressing them is a bad idea. They win one impossible point, and then another, lifting the crowd and pointing to their ears, and the avalanche starts to rumble down the mountain.

Zverev, who knows he is world No. 2 in rank but not in spirit, knows what this feels like. He rarely gets tired during tennis matches, even the longest five-set duels at Grand Slams. The 2024 French Open final against Alcaraz was different. By the fifth set, his legs were gone, his body wilting from the relentlessness of the challenge that he expects will shape tennis for many years.

“Everybody talks about how great they are defensively,” Zverev said after defeating Alcaraz at the ATP Tour Finals in Turin. He doesn’t buy it.

“Tennis is not about defense anymore,” he added.

“It used to be a few years back, but I think those guys, 90 percent of the time they’re only playing offense. It’s about making sure that you can keep up offensively with them, being able to keep up with their speeds of groundstrokes as well. That’s the No. 1 thing. Not backing off, going for your shots in the most important moments. That’s maybe where I struggled, as well, in my career, trusting my shots and going for them when I need to.”

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He and just about everyone else. This is where Sinner and Alcaraz are taking tennis. Movement, specifically in and out of the corners, has become as important as the serve and the return. Ben Shelton has realized his 150mph serve and lashing forehand will only take him so far, hiring Gabriel Echevarria, a movement specialist, early last year. Naomi Osaka hired a ballerina to help her gain more surety and speed in the corners. Nearly every player wants to master an open-stance backhand, to save a split second on the pivot back to the center of the court.

Fritz, who has long known that he struggles outside the singles line, spent much of the off-season working on moving out to the farthest reaches of a tennis court to chase down balls. His coach, Michael Russell, has seen a version of this movie before. At 46, he’s three years older than Roger Federer, eight years older than Nadal and nine years older than Djokovic. He watched those three players change the sport’s equation, just as Sinner and Alcaraz are doing now.

“There’s no room for uncharacteristic errors,” he said during an interview in Italy in November. “Literally, they’re not giving you an inch.”


Carlos Alcaraz thrives on winning points from seemingly impossible positions (Julian Finney / Getty Images)

When Russell uses the word “error,” he’s not talking about a ball that flies long or dumps into the net, unforced or not. He’s talking about any ball that doesn’t have enough speed, depth, or width to stop Sinner and Alcaraz from exploiting it. For decades, a first principle of tennis has been resetting a point, changing its state from attack to neutral, or defense to neutral. Sinner and Alcaraz don’t allow for this. There’s a reason Fritz and Zverev, the two players closest to Sinner and Alcaraz in the rankings, have spent so much time the past months learning how to dictate the terms of engagement.

“Even if it’s only one or two points a match, that can be the differential. Applying that psychological pressure that the guy can’t just float the ball back and reset,” Russell said.

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This is what Alcaraz and Sinner do so well and so much better than their ATP Tour contemporaries.


That flip of a point from defense to attack has been codified by data specialists TennisViz and Tennis Data Innovations as a “steal score,” measuring how often a player wins a point from defense. Alcaraz is top. Sinner is not far behind.

Across the ATP Tour, players are hitting shots outside the singles sidelines around 17 percent of the time, but Sinner and Alcaraz win around 45 percent of the points they play from there. Their opponents win around 30.

From outside the doubles lines, Alcaraz wins 43 percent of points and Sinner 42. Alcaraz’s opponents win around 22 percent; Sinner’s around 29.

Casper Ruud, who like Zverev and Fritz spent most of 2024 with his head spinning, doesn’t recognize the tennis that took him to three Grand Slam finals in 12 months in 2022 and 2023. After spending years perfecting his balance between patience and a lethal forehand, he could feel Sinner and Alcaraz making tennis pass him by. Those deep, looping shots he has long used to hang in points simply don’t work against them. He needs to change, or perish as a force at the top of the game.

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“They can turn around the point with one shot on the run, even from the forehand or backhand,” he said in an interview Italy in November. “I feel like that is something definitely missing in my game on the faster hard court.

“That’s something in the next weeks and months I’ll try to keep working on. But I’m not going to change my game in one day or one week. It’s going to take time.”


Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz’s meetings inevitably descend into games of tennis chicken (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)

Ruud is 26. Fritz and Zverev are 27. They and the rest of their contemporaries, who have spent most of their tennis lives banging on the Big Three ceiling, are now having to make a mid-career adjustment based on how two youngsters who have achieved their dreams before them play the sport.

Younger players, even juniors, may be at an advantage. Just as so many of them are trying to master Alcaraz’s drop-shot-lob combinations, they are growing up knowing what they have to be able to do to reach the top of tennis. For the rest of the ATP Tour, it can feel like climbing a mountain that dissolves just before the apex, then re-forms with new terrain and a higher summit.


Sinner and Alcaraz are remaking tennis for everybody else, but what happens when the unstoppable force goes up against the immovable object? What would the Australian Open final that everybody wants to see look like?

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“You have more tension. You have more eyes on us because this is a match most people want to see,” Sinner said Friday in a Melbourne news conference.

“First, you have to arrive to this stage where you play against Carlos, which is a very difficult part to go through. When this happens, the feeling — I think he also feels the same way — it’s a bit different. We usually play a high-quality match because when two players face each other and you bring out your best, the quality of the match usually is very high.”

Sinner spent most of the year as the world No. 1, even though Alcaraz holds a 6-4 edge in their rivalry. Alcaraz won all three of their meetings last year, most recently in the final of the China Open in Beijing, edging Sinner 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-6(3) from 3-0 down in the deciding tiebreak with seven points from another galaxy.

Alcaraz said in New York in December that he and his friends think it’s pretty funny that Sinner is No. 1 without beating him last year. Sinner is besting him on serve right now; Alcaraz is the better player in the forecourt, with the vertical movement to go with the lateral magic tricks they share.

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Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner go head to head in their own tennis galaxy

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That might have a little bit to do with the edge he holds in the nether reaches of the tennis court. They are about even in their performance on points when they move each other beyond the singles line, with Alcaraz winning 36 percent of those points and Sinner 38 percent.

Outside the doubles lines, Alcaraz has a clear advantage, winning 36 percent of the points against 30 percent for Sinner. In general, their pushing each other to greater heights also forces them to lose a few points that they would win against anybody else.

Once they get in attack, they are the two best players on the ATP Tour at closing out the point. Sinner wins 74 percent of the time; Alcaraz 73.

Against each other though, when they are pulling off their acrobatics on points that send the opponent off the court, those rates drop. However, Alcaraz’s doesn’t drop as much. He converts 66 percent of the time against Sinner, while Sinner converts 62 percent of the time from his end of the court.

That still leaves a sizable number of those highlight reel points, when they both put on a version of tennis as escape art. It’s their ability to do the extraordinary against the only other player in their orbit — though don’t count Djokovic and his 24 Grand slam titles out just yet.

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“Insane,” Fritz said in Turin.

He’s the one who has to try and beat them.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design:Will Tullos)

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High school basketball: Thursday's playoff scores

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High school basketball: Thursday's playoff scores

HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL

THURSDAY’S RESULTS

CITY SECTION

Animo Bunche 28, Animo Pat Brown 17

Chavez 33, Monroe 4

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Collins Family d. CALS Early College, forfeit

Kennedy 65, Van Nuys 34

Marquez 51, Elizabeth 15

Maywood Academy 33, Torres 26

New West Charter 28, University Prep Value 27

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Smidt Tech 14, LA Leadership

South East 59, Jordan 31

BOYS

CITY SECTION

Aspire Ollin 42, Annenberg 39

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Marquez 74, Elizabeth 38

Middle College 45, Stella 26

Monroe 48, Chavez 25

Poly 79, Grant 46

Port of LA 87, Dymally 77

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Sherman Oaks CES 85, VAAS 53

Simon Tech 39, AHSA 26

Sylmar 69, San Fernando 60

Van Nuys 59, Kennedy 57

Westchester 94, University 46

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GIRLS

SOUTHERN SECTION PLAYOFFS

FIRST ROUND

DIVISION 1

#1 Ventura 63, Thousand Oaks 40

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#16 Crean Lutheran 44, Orange Lutheran 39

#9 Marlborough 50, El Dorado 39

#8 Rancho Christian 81, Mira Costa 64

#5 La Salle 48, Flintridge Prep 33

#12 Chaminade 52, Claremont 45

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#13 Santa Margarita 56, Redondo Union 47

#4 Harvard-Westlake 71, Rialto 45

#3 Moreno Valley 61, Rancho Cucamonga 40

St. Monica 70, #14 St. Anthony 65

#11 San Clemente 80, Valencia 64

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#6 JSerra 66, Bonita 39

Riverside King 60, #7 Buena 52 (OT)

Esperanza 56, #10 Westlake 53

#15 Corona Centennial 66, Villa Park 43

#2 Brentwood 80, Heritage 45

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DIVISION 2AA

#1 Buena Park 66, Lakewood St. Joseph 59

West Torrance 51, #16 Crescenta Valley 31

#9 Campbell Hall 47, Glendora 45

#8 Portola 57, Camarillo 50

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#5 San Juan Hills 67, San Dimas 50

Diamond Bar 57, #12 St. Margaret’s 54

Summit 28, #13 Long Beach Poly 34

Oak Park 58, #4 Oxnard 36

Beckman 52, #3 Crossroads 41

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#14 Palos Verdes 51, Valley View 44

#11 Hart 59, San Jacinto 52

South Torrance 46, #6 Shadow Hills 34

Lynwood 66, #7 Los Osos 56

#10 Lakewood 58, Corona Santiago 50

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#15 Dos Pueblos 53, Saugus 49

#2 North Torrance 74, Paramount 66

DIVISION 2A

#1 Burbank Burroughs 40, Millikan 12

Village Christian 44, #16 Dana Hills 35

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Marina 70, #9 Placentia Valencia 51

Pioneer 56, #8 Oaks Christian 49

Sonora 59, #5 Antelope Valley 47

Torrance 46, #12 Los Alamitos 45

Corona at #13 Rolling Hills Prep

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#4 Fountain Valley 48, Bishop Alemany 46

#3 Chino 84, United Christian Academy 44

Corona del Mar 38, #14 Yorba Linda 31

#11 Brea Olinda 49, Fontana 31

Oak Hills 56, #6 Eastvale Roosevelt 46

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Trinity Classical Academy at #7 Segerstrom

Notre Dame Academy 57, #10 Canyon Country Canyon 55

La Canada 49, #15 Aliso Niguel 29

#2 Rosary Academy 62, Pasadena 41

DIVISION 3AA

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#1 Orange County Pacifica Christian 43, Troy 35

Chaparral 48, #16 Murrieta Valley 45

Santa Fe at #9 Godinez, Friday

Downey 55, #8 Arcadia 47

Mark Keppel 55, #5 Long Beach Jordan 23

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#12 South Pasadena 77, Moorpark 48

#13 Oakwood 59, Carter 22

#4 Highland 59, Holy Martyrs 50

Cerritos 60, #3 Lancaster 40

Beaumont 60, #14 California 27

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Ridgecrest Burroughs 54, #11 St. Bonaventure 49

#6 Great Oak 58, Grand Terrace 49

#7 Diamond Ranch 67, Rowland 59

#10 Culver City 52, Yucaipa 40

Huntington Beach 45, #15 Immaculate Heart 31

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#2 El Segundo 68, South Hills 44

DIVISION 3A

#1 Lawndale 34, Santa Monica 32

#16 Alta Loma 56, Glendale 53

#9 Gahr 56, Yeshiva 25

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Shalhevet at #8 Loma Linda Academy

#5 Desert Christian Academy 55, Coachella Valley 42

El Toro 45, #12 Ontario 38

Ramona 66, #13 Hemet 52

#4 Twentynine Palms 50, Pasadena Poly 40

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#3 La Serna 34, Santa Ana Foothill 30

#14 Whitney 40, Bishop Amat 37

Eastside 69, #11 Geffen Academy 36

#6 El Rancho 49, Rio Hondo Prep 41

#7 Palm Desert 47, Coastal Christian 34

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#10 Temescal Canyon 67, California School for the Deaf Riverside 48

Cantwell Sacred Heart 52, #15 Hesperia 35

#2 Temecula Valley 65, Sierra Vista 50

DIVISION 4AA

#1 Savanna, bye

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#16 Laguna Beach 46, Silver Valley 34

#9 Heritage Christian 61, Linfield Christian 49

Irvine 39, #8 Apple Valley 36

#5 Tesoro 44, Hesperia Christian 22

Foothill Tech 48, #12 Santa Monica Pacifica Christian 31

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Redlands East Valley at #13 Maranatha

Lancaster Desert Christian 49, #4 Temecula Prep 40

Vistamar 24, #3 St. Lucy’s 20

#14 Westminster La Quinta 51, Silverado 37

Anaheim 64, #11 Santa Clarita Christian 36

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Gardena Serra 55, #6 Northview 29

#7 Santa Paula 63, Elsinore 41

Tustin at #10 Canyon Springs

Milken 42, #15 Hawthorne MSA 34

#2 Leuzinger 49, Dominguez 43

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DIVISION 4A

Riverside Prep 58, #1 Sherman Indian 40

#16 West Covina 37, Rancho Verde 36

San Marino at #9 Mayfield, Friday

#8 La Mirada 56, Orange 42

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#5 Laguna Hills 46, San Jacinto Valley 33

#12 Schurr 43, Temple City 38

#13 Santa Maria Valley Christian 50, Colton 34

University Prep 36, #4 Packinghouse Christian 21

#3 La Palma Kennedy 41, Lucerne Valley 22

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#14 Arrowhead Christian 49, Woodcrest Christian 41

#11 Oxford Academy 46, Faith Baptist 43

Nogales 33, #6 La Quinta 31

#7 Warren 53, CAMS 22

Thacher 40, #10 Newbury Park Adventist 38

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#15 Pilibos 53, Duarte 52

San Luis Obispo Classical at #2 San Jacinto Leadership Academy

DIVISION 5AA

#1 Loara, bye

#16 San Gabriel Academy 67, Santa Barbara Providence 19

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#9 Fullerton 49, Fillmore 20

#8 Hillcrest 53, Adelanto 34

#5 Nordhoff 66, AB Miller 50

Avalon at #12 Westminster

Capistrano Valley Christian 37, #13 Anza Hamilton 34

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#4 Costa Mesa 65, St. Genevieve 48

Indian Springs at #3 Environmental Charter

St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 69, #14 Thousand Oaks Hillcrest Christian 7

#11 Patriot 62, Acaciawood Academy 6

Perris at #6 Los Amigos

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#7 Charter Oak 44, Bell Gardens 37

#10 Santa Ana 41, Carpinteria 37

Western Christian 53, #15 Victor Valley 47

Rancho Alamitos at #2 Redlands Adventist Academy

DIVISION 5A

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#1 Riverside Notre Dame, bye

Citrus Hill 49, #16 Riverside Bethel Christian 27

Sacred Heart LA at #9 Rosemead

Desert Hot Springs 64, #8 Excelsior Charter 26

#5 Arroyo Valley 29, South El Monte 28

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#12 Banning 51, Edgewood 48

#13 Bolsa Grande 44, Southlands Christian 24

Ganesha 57, #4 Summit View West 15

Pasadena Marshall 48, #3 Mesa Grande Academy 22

Jurupa Hills 48, #14 San Bernardino 25

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Mary Star of the Sea 51, #11 Santa Clara 15

Saddleback at #6 La Sierra

Workman 33, #7 Webb 20

Gabrielino 55, #10 Calvary Baptist 21

#15 Villanova Prep 53, NOVA Academy Early College 43

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#2 Shandon, bye

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NCAA committee recommends adding flag football as emerging sport for women

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NCAA committee recommends adding flag football as emerging sport for women

An NCAA committee recommended on Wednesday adding flag football to its emerging women’s sports program, a significant step toward it becoming an officially sponsored championship sport in all three divisions.

The NCAA said at least 65 schools are already sponsoring flag football at either the club or varsity level, with more moving in that direction. With a push from the NFL, flag football also has been added to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

The NFL has vigorously promoted flag football for several years, including starting a global ambassador program in 2022. Domestically, the league and its teams have been pushing for flag football to be sanctioned as a varsity sport in high schools around the country.

Once in the NCAA’s emerging women’s sports program, flag football would need a minimum of 40 schools sponsoring it at the varsity level and meet minimums in games played and player participation to be considered for NCAA championship status.

The NCAA’s emerging women’s sports program was created to help facilitate more opportunities for women and give schools more opportunities to sponsor teams.

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The last sport to move through the program was women’s wrestling, which was approved last month to become the NCAA’s 91st championship sport. The first women’s wrestling championship will be held in 2026.

Five other sports are currently in the program: acrobatics and tumbling, equestrian, rugby, stunt and triathlon. Five sports have previously emerged from the program to earn NCAA championship status: rowing (1996), ice hockey (2000), water polo (2000), bowling (2003) and beach volleyball (2015).

(Photo: Isaiah Vazquez / Getty Images)

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Jets to move on from Aaron Rodgers after 2 seasons

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Jets to move on from Aaron Rodgers after 2 seasons

The New York Jets have made it official: They intend to move on from Aaron Rodgers. 

The team released a statement on Thursday that they are moving forward without the four-time MVP. 

“Last week we met with Aaron and shared that our intention was to move in a different direction at quarterback,” head coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey said in a statement released by the team. 

FILE – New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) stands with teammates before an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Jan. 5, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J.  (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

“It was important to have this discussion now to provide clarity and enable each of us the proper time to plan for our respective futures. We want to thank him for the leadership, passion, and dedication he brought to the organization and wish him success moving forward.”

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Rodgers spent two seasons with the team, but suffered a torn Achilles just four snaps into his first game into his Jets tenure.

Returning from the season-ending injury in 2024, Rodgers’ Jets went 5-12 and fired both head coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas during the season. 

Rodgers threw for 3,987 yards and 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 17 games for the Jets last season. 

“I personally want to thank Aaron for his time at the New York Jets,” said owner Woody Johnson in the statement. 

“His arrival in 2023 was met with unbridled excitement and I will forever be grateful that he chose to join us to continue his Hall of Fame career. From day one, he embodied all that it meant to be a New York Jet, embraced our fans, and immersed himself in our city. That is what I will remember most when I look back at his time here. He will always be welcome, and I wish him only the best in whatever he chooses to do next.”

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