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Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the teen stars of 2021 who are starting all over again

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Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the teen stars of 2021 who are starting all over again

There may come a time when Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu are in the draw of a major tournament and one of their names does not immediately follow the other in the tennis consciousness.

Maybe, but not yet.  

One of them has been grinding her way up and down and back up the ever-shifting ladder that is women’s professional tennis. 

The other struggled for a year and a half to string wins together, then called it a season and had three surgeries — on each wrist and one of her ankles — on one grim day last spring. That was not long before the other one realized she needed to hit her own career restart button, too. 

One is the daughter of finance executives, the product of a Chinese father and a Romanian mother, raised in Great Britain with plenty of advantages and the chance to choose among the finest universities had she gone down that path. 

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The other grew up in Canada and then on the hot hard courts of Florida, driven by desire and her father, a former Ecuadorian soccer player, to make a living with a tennis racket.

Other than being born in Canada nine weeks apart, Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez do not share much in common. They aren’t any more than professional acquaintances. 

Inevitably, they will always be more than that and always be linked because of those magical two weeks a little more than two years ago, when they were still teenagers co-starring in the zaniest Grand Slam tennis tournament that will ever happen. When nearly three weeks of competition had ended, Raducanu, a relative unknown outside of Great Britain, had won 10 straight matches, including the qualifying tournament, and 20 straight sets, and defeated Fernandez, the world’s 73rd-ranked player but the second-most unlikely finalist that day, for the championship.


Raducanu celebrates her U.S. Open win, aged 18, in 2021 (Getty Images)

There has been plenty of frustration for both of them since. Hard losses and early-round exits, hard lessons about life in the spotlight, and strings of injuries that sometimes felt like they would never cease. Raducanu, especially, looked mostly miserable with each tournament and each loss, especially during the final months when she was playing in constant pain.

But here they are this week in Melbourne, into the second round on opposite sides of the draw, getting busy with the next phase of their tennis lives at an age when most players are still trying to get their teeth into the first one. 

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For Raducanu, 21, that meant a first-round win on Tuesday evening over the American veteran Shelby Rogers that was as solid as it needed to be. Rogers, 31, was searching for form after an injury-induced six-month layoff, but for long stretches, Raducanu showcased so much of the style that sent her to those lofty heights — the easy, deceptively fast movement, the low, whipping and curling power off the ground, even a feathery backhand drop shot and, most importantly, the ability to not beat herself with careless errors. 

The final score was 6-3, 6-2 and it wasn’t really that close. More of that and Raducanu will be ranked much higher than 296th in the world before long.

“All aspects of my life are calming down and settled,” Raducanu said. “When you come back after eight months, have experienced three surgeries, you’re just really grateful to move freely.”


Raducanu is fit again after three surgeries (James D Morgan/Getty Images)

This all went down a couple of days after Fernandez won one of the first matches of the tournament, a straight-sets win over Sara Bejlek of the Czech Republic. Sure, Bejlek was just a 17-year-old qualifier, but this was a different Fernandez who wasn’t just staying in points and chasing down balls in the corners like she always has, but also sprinting to the net to finish them off like she rarely has before.   

I can’t always be a grinder or just a returner,” Fernandez said as she sat in a soft chair in a Melbourne Park corridor a little while after her match. “Everybody on tour is a grinder. You see the top players, they run for every ball.”

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For Fernandez, the restart began just after the French Open following her three-set loss in the second round, a winnable match against world No 127 Clara Tauson of Denmark. Even as Fernandez and Taylor Townsend cruised into the doubles final at Roland Garros, her father suggested they have a formal sit-down to discuss her future. Her singles ranking was about to drop to 95, her lowest since 2020. 

He told her she could listen to 100 per cent of what he was going to say and finish the season in the top 20, or less than 100 per cent and maybe finish in the top 40.  

“Of course, I didn’t listen to him 100 per cent,” she said. “That comes with maturity and I own up to it.”


Fernandez is back on the up (Kelly Defina/Getty Images)

But she did listen to a lot of what he told her and signed on to his plan to start from scratch with a mini-pre-season in the weeks leading up to Wimbledon, leaving the rackets on the side of the court at times and focusing on her fitness. She had been one of the quickest players in the game but had somehow become slower, or the game had got quicker, with women moving forward more or playing drop shots and taking time away from her.

She needed to be faster for longer and the only way to do that was to build endurance. 

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“You kind of see Novak Djokovic every single year, he’s trying to improve something,” Fernandez, who faces the American Alycia Parks in the second round, said. “He changed his whole diet. He started doing yoga. It’s very basic. The fundamentals of an athlete’s body. We wanted to see what can we improve in my fitness because if my fitness level is high and I’m confident with that, my game will follow afterwards.”

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Her summer, which included another mini-pre-season after Wimbledon, was up and down, including a first-round loss in the U.S. Open. In September, she was playing qualifying matches, but in October, she won the Hong Kong Open, then made the semi-finals of the Jiangxi Open. 

It’s taken a while, but Fernandez, 21, is finally beginning to experience all the attention and the crowds that have followed her since the 2021 U.S. Open as support rather than pressure. 

“It just took time to understand what was happening,” she said, “to understand what I was feeling and work through that… just find ways to get back to the little girl who would just want to get on court and to hit and hit and have fun and put on a show for everybody.”

Raducanu wants to do that, too. She said she was shocked to see thousands of fans packing the cozy 1573 Arena when she walked onto the court. She tried not to focus on a potential result, which just three matches into her comeback could go either way, and that’s going to have to be her life for now.

“The difference between me losing first round or doing really well at a tournament is really, really slim,” she said. “It’s just in the way that I move, in the way I do things physically. Not being so drastic, I would say, because I know it’s not far away at all. The more I practice consistently, it will come up.”

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She lingered long after the win, soaking in the adulation, signing autographs and posing for selfies all around the stadium, her restart officially now underway. Next up for Raducanu is a second round against China’s Yafan Wang. 

“The time away made me very hungry,” Raducanu said. “I’m just happy to be healthy again and pain-free.”

(Top photo: James D Morgan/Getty Images)

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Chargers’ Justin Herbert gushes over Madison Beer in heartfelt birthday tribute: ‘Changed my life forever’

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Chargers’ Justin Herbert gushes over Madison Beer in heartfelt birthday tribute: ‘Changed my life forever’

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Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert gushed over 27-year-old singer Madison Beer in a heartfelt birthday tribute on social media, offering fans a rare glimpse into the couple’s relationship. 

The two-time Pro Bowl quarterback, who normally shies away from the public eye, posted a series of photos to his Instagram Stories on Thursday. 

Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers warms up prior to a game against the Philadelphia Eagles at SoFi Stadium on Dec. 8, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images)

“Happy birthday to my favorite person of all time,” Herbert wrote in a post that showed the couple on the sidelines of one of his NFL games. “I love you so much. You’ve changed my life forever.”

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In another photo appearing to show the couple out to dinner, Herbert wrote, “I am the luckiest guy alive…”

Herbert, who turns 28 later this month, shared another photo of the “Make You Mine” artist petting goats and captioned the photo, “My goats.”

The couple was first linked together in August when they were spotted together on the set of one of Beer’s music videos in Los Angeles. Herbert and Beer were photographed in October on the sidelines of a Chargers game at SoFi Stadium, seemingly confirming the dating rumors. 

Quarterback Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers and singer Madison Beer attend an NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 24, 2025. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

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The same month, Herbert went viral after blocking a rogue basketball from hitting Beer when the two sat courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers game.  

Herbert signed a five-year, $262.5 million extension with the Chargers in July 2023. Despite proving himself to be one of the elite young quarterbacks in the NFL, Los Angeles’ offensive struggles have seen the team fall short in back-to-back playoff appearances.

Quarterback Justin Herbert (10) of the Los Angeles Chargers blocks a basketball from hitting Madison Beer as they attend a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 24, 2025. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

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 The team’s offensive coordinator, Greg Roman, was fired in January and replaced with former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, who is regarded as one of the top offensive minds in football. 

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Shohei Ohtani’s second-inning grand slam propels Japan to a rout in World Baseball Classic opener

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Shohei Ohtani’s second-inning grand slam propels Japan to a rout in World Baseball Classic opener

The last time Shohei Ohtani was seen wearing a World Baseball Classic uniform with “Japan” across his chest, he was striking out Mike Trout of the United States on a ninth-inning, full-count slider to give his country a victory in the championship game three years ago.

So much has happened in Ohtani’s life between then and now. He has a wife and a daughter, a new interpreter, a new Major League team, two World Series championships and three more Most Valuable Player awards.

Yet unforgettable WBC memories continue. This time, he delivered from the batter’s box instead of the pitcher’s mound.

In the second inning of Japan’s WBC opener against Chinese Taipei on Friday at the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani smacked a hanging curve a few feet over the right-field wall for a grand slam, triggering an offensive onslaught that resulted in a 13-0 victory.

“I thought it might land as an out, so above all, I really wanted to get the first run on the board,” Ohtani told reporters afterward.

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Ohtani led off the game with a double and singled in his second at-bat of the second inning, when Japan put up a WBC-record 10 runs. He added a run-scoring single in the third inning, giving him five runs batted in.

In 2023, Ohtani hit and pitched Japan to the WBC title, batting .435 with eight RBIs and allowing only two earned runs in 9 2/3 innings on the mound. This year, he will only bat, saving his pitching for the Dodgers, who begin their quest for a third consecutive World Series title in three weeks.

Japan’s starting pitcher Friday was a decorated Dodger nevertheless. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, MVP of the 2025 World Series, threw 2 2/3 scoreless innings, walking three and striking out two while giving up no hits.

His command wasn’t pinpoint — he threw 53 pitches, 33 for strikes — but it is still spring training, even though the atmosphere was electric for Japanese players competing in front of a crowd of 42,314 that included actor Timothy Chalamet and superstar Bad Bunny.

“I know there will be some tough battles ahead, but if the fans and the team can unite and everyone can help build the excitement together, it will really encourage us,” Ohtani said.

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Russell Wilson escalates feud with Sean Payton, labels Broncos coach ‘classless’

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Russell Wilson escalates feud with Sean Payton, labels Broncos coach ‘classless’

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Russell Wilson and Sean Payton spent just one NFL season together, but tension lingered after a rocky year.

And it appears the tension that built up from that tumultuous stretch continues to linger.

Wilson’s interview on the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast, recorded before last month’s Super Bowl between Seattle and New England, recently resurfaced. 

In the interview, Wilson doubled down on his October comment labeling Payton “classless,” saying he felt slighted by his former coach’s remarks.

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Head coach Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos talks to quarterback Russell Wilson on the sideline during an NFL preseason football game against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium Aug. 11, 2023, in Glendale, Ariz. (Ryan Kang/Getty Images)

“[When] you’ve been on the same side or this and that, and I got the same amount of rings as you got, meaning Sean, right?” said Wilson, who won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks as Payton did coaching for the New Orleans Saints. 

“I got a lot of respect for him as a play-caller, this and that, but to take a shot, I don’t like. I don’t think it’s necessary, you know, I mean, especially when I’m not even on your own team anymore. So, for me, there’s a point in time where you have to, I’ve realized, I’ve stayed quiet for so long. There’s a there’s a time and place where I’m not.

“I know who I am as a competitor, as a warrior, as a champion, too, and, you know, I’ve beaten Sean, too. You know, like we’ve been on the same place and the same thing. And so, it’s not a matter of disrespect. Just don’t disrespect me.”

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Sean Payton and Russell Wilson of the Denver Broncos during an a game against the Minnesota Vikings at Empower Field at Mile High Nov. 19, 2023, in Denver, Colo. (Ryan Kang/Getty Images)

After a rocky one-year stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2024, Wilson joined the New York Giants last offseason. However, he was relegated to a backup role after just three games.

Rookie Jaxson Dart quickly showed promise once he had the chance to start, but his season was briefly derailed by injury. Jameis Winston — not Wilson — stepped in for Dart in a handful of games. Dart threw three touchdowns in a Week 7 matchup with the Broncos, nearly pulling off an upset in what was eventually a close loss.

After the game, Payton said Dart provided a “spark” to the Giants’ offense.

“I was talking to [Giants owner] John Mara not too long ago, and I said, ‘We were hoping that that change would have happened long after our game,’” Payton said.

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The New York Giants’ Russell Wilson attempts to escape a sack by Dallas Cowboys defensive end James Houston (53) in the first half of a game Sept. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas.  (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Payton also said the Broncos would have faced less of a challenge had Wilson been under center.

“Classless … but not surprised,” Wilson responded in a social media post. “Didn’t realize you’re still bounty hunting 15+ years later though the media.”

Despite last season’s struggles and chatter about his football future, Wilson does not appear ready to call it quits in 2026.

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“I wanna play a few more years for sure,” he said. “I think, for me, I’ve always had the vision of getting to 40, at least. I think the game is different. Quarterbacks, we get hit. It’s not, you know, we get hit hard, but … there’s certain rules. I mean, back in the day when I started, bro, it was you just get [clobbered]. 

“I mean, so I feel like the game allows you to, you know, live a little longer, I guess. I feel healthy. I feel great. But I think, more than anything else is, do you love the game? Do you love studying? Do you love the passion for it all? Do you love the process? Do you love the practice? Do you love — everybody loves the winning part of it, but it’s process. There’s a journey that you got to be obsessed with. And that part I’m obsessed with.”

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