#grand-slam-of-darts

#grand-slam-of-darts

The announcement that the world snooker championships would remain at Sheffield's Crucible theatre until 2045 was not just a surprise... it was a major relief for a neglected northern giant.

The future of the event at the 980-seat venue has been in doubt for years, with Matchroom's president, Barry Hearn, repeatedly hinting the tournament may have to leave its spiritual home in favour of a bigger venue when their previous deal expired next year.

According to the Lawn Tennis Association, only 15,000 British players picked up a padel racket in 2019 but by the end of 2024, that figure was more than 400,000. Of those, about 399,000 are probably mispronouncing it: think pah-dell rather than paddle.

Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid and Jordan Cox are some of the big domestic names up for grabs. Among the overseas, there's been an update overnight from the ECB: Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock, Shaheen Afridi, Allah Ghazanfar and Peter Siddle (still going!) are no longer on the auction list.

Each year, the PGA Tour underpins prize funds on the DP World, formerly European, Tour. The fee is listed in the European Tour Group's accounts as an annual investment payment. In 2024, it rose by almost 10%, to 21.5m. The likelihood is the figure increased again in 2025. The mistake would be to regard this as chump change for the PGA Tour; the subsidy is turning heads within an organisation that now has private equity and the Strategic Sports Group to answer to.

It's a bit of a no-brainer. We're women, we've all got different shapes and sizes. As a 20-year-old, wearing a dress would have been fine for me, but if you put me on court now I couldn't think of anything worse than wearing a netball dress. - Coach Tamsin Greenway on Mavericks' kit innovation

If PGA National rewards touch, patience and precision over power, that's exactly Bezuidenhout's lane. He's one of the better short-game players in the field, ranked fourth in strokes gained around the green and second best in the field in putting, with strong Bermuda splits to back it up. His strength is his ability to convert mid-range putts and save par when greens are misses.

Rob Key has mentioned it on a couple of occasions, but we've never really got to that position where it's like: OK, what should we do here? If Rob Key called me and said: I want to talk to you properly, then I'll talk to him, definitely. I'm available to have the discussion.

Leicester Tigers guaranteed themselves a home semi-final in the Prem Rugby Cup by beating Harlequins to top Pool B. The 33-27 victory at Mattioli Woods Welford Road opened up a nine-point lead at the top of the table for Leicester, who have never won the competition, with one match left to play for second-placed Northampton Saints. Meanwhile, Exeter Chiefs moved top of Pool A with a convincing win over Bath to seal their own spot in the last four.

Evann Guessand scored his first goal for Crystal Palace in the 90th minute as they eased the pressure on Oliver Glasner with a 1-0 win over 10-man Wolves. Glasner had come under fire from his own supporters in the build-up to Sunday's match after telling them to "stay humble", following a miserable run of form that had threatened to drag Palace into the relegation battle.

On a Wednesday in the desert last March, Reilly Opelka, the American with a cannon of a serve, was grinding out a tough match against French number one Arthur Rinderknech. Nearby, former US Open men's finalist Kei Nishikori beat Luca Nardi, part of the new wave of Italian talent, while Brazilian phenom Joao Fonseca closed out Pavel Kotov, who reached number 50 in the world in 2024.

Starting with the hosts, while Oliver Glasner might have already announced that he will be leaving Selhurst Park at the end of the 2025/26 campaign, there has been serious speculation that the former Eintracht Frankfurt boss could be set for an imminent departure from south London. Missing out on the chance to gain a Europa Conference League first-leg advantage earlier in the week as they eventually had to settle for a downbeat 1-1 stalemate away at Bosnian outfit Zrinjski, the Eagles have drastically failed to find any kind of recent stability. Suffering an infamous collapse on home soil last week as they slumped to a 3-2 loss against Burnley, Glasner's side have remarkably recorded just a single victory from any of their previous 15 appearances across all competitions - a rut that stems all the way back to December 11th.