Author: Shekari Philemon

Emma Raducanu came closer to a title on home soil than the scoreline suggests, saving four championship points across the second set and a tiebreak before ultimately falling to Donna Vekic at the HSBC Championships at Queen’s Club in London. The final score of 6-0, 7-6 tells only part of the story. Raducanu was outplayed comprehensively in the opening set but refused to surrender the match in the second, fighting back from the brink repeatedly before the Croatian, who entered the tournament as a lucky loser, closed it out in a tiebreak. It was the first grass-court final of Raducanu’s…

The New York Jets have secured one of their most reliable young offensive linemen, agreeing to a four-year, $62 million contract extension with right guard Joe Tippmann that keeps him under contract through the 2030 season and removes him from what would have been a competitive free agent market next year. Tippmann, 25, was entering the final year of his rookie deal and was widely viewed as one of the more attractive interior offensive linemen available in the upcoming offseason class. The Jets moved to prevent that scenario by locking him in at $15.5 million per year on average, a…

Top NBA draft prospect Darryn Peterson has met with the Washington Wizards and declined to grant visits to any other team ahead of next week’s draft, a move that has drawn significant attention from rival franchises holding lottery picks and sent a clear signal about where he believes his future lies. The Wizards own the first overall selection in a draft that begins June 23. Peterson’s decision to limit his pre-draft access exclusively to Washington stands in contrast to the more conventional approach of touring multiple teams, and league observers have noted the choice as meaningful even if it does…

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is not dismissing Lewis Hamilton’s championship prospects, and after Sunday’s result in Barcelona, he has good reason to take them seriously. The man who guided Hamilton to six of his seven world titles said plainly this week that he knows what the seven-time champion is capable of when he gains momentum, and described the prospect of facing him in a title fight as something he would rather avoid. Hamilton’s victory at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix was the first of the 2026 season for any driver not in a Mercedes. It moved him to within 41…

Lewis Hamilton won his first race with Ferrari at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix on Sunday, a result that carried an emotional weight far greater than a single victory would normally suggest. In the days that followed, the seven-time world champion revealed how close he came to losing himself entirely during his first year at the Italian team, and how it was his fans, more than anything else, who kept him from stepping away. Hamilton’s debut season at Ferrari in 2025 was by almost any measure a failure relative to the standards he had set across a career that produced more…

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles made his position on Baker Mayfield unmistakably clear Thursday, stating without hesitation that he wants the quarterback as his long-term starter, even as contract negotiations between Mayfield and the organization remain at an early impasse. Bowles’s comments came in direct response to remarks Mayfield made last week in which the quarterback described the two sides as nowhere near aligned on a new deal heading into what is the final year of his current three-year, $100 million contract. The disconnect, at least publicly, appears real. The coach’s commitment to the player, however, appears equally…

The Seattle Seahawks held a private ring ceremony Thursday night for players, coaches, and football staff, unveiling championship rings that rank among the most elaborately engineered pieces of jewelry in Super Bowl history. Designed and produced by Jason of Beverly Hills, the rings were three months in the making and incorporate a level of mechanical complexity that required an entirely separate engineering process before a single stone was set. The same jeweler has created championship rings for three of the previous five Super Bowl champions, giving the design house a well-established presence in the upper tier of sports jewelry. What…

Denver Broncos linebacker Jonathon Cooper was arrested Thursday night on charges that he violated a protection order that had been put in place earlier in the week, marking his second arrest in less than two weeks and deepening a legal situation that now includes a felony charge. Cooper was booked into Douglas County Jail in Colorado at approximately 10 p.m. local time following his arrest by Parker Police. He remained in custody Friday morning when a court hearing was scheduled. The new charges include harassment through repeated phone calls and a violation of the protection order, which had been issued…

The Big3 basketball league, co-founded by rapper and entrepreneur Ice Cube, is moving toward a public stock offering with an eye on a $290 million valuation, a move that would make it one of the few professional sports properties available for everyday investors to own a piece of directly. The league announced Friday that it has entered into an agreement with Graf Global Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, as the vehicle for its market debut. The target is to begin trading on a major stock exchange in the fourth quarter of 2026 under the ticker symbol TONT,…

Victor Wembanyama’s night did not end when the final buzzer sounded at Madison Square Garden. The San Antonio Spurs superstar arrived at his hotel a few blocks south of the arena flanked by security, only to be met by jeering fans and at least one thrown egg captured on video and circulated widely online. The footage showed a projectile cracking against a street sign near the hotel entrance as Wembanyama made his way inside. Seconds after the egg landed, Wembanyama turned and confronted someone standing near the entrance before continuing through the door. It was not clear from the video…