1:41 PM ET D’Arcy MaineESPN.com Rafael Nadal announced he will skip the upcoming Miami Open in order to focus on the clay-court season, citing the back injury that bothered him at the Australian Open. The 20-time major champion tweeted Tuesday that he was opting out of the event, which begins next week. Sad to announce
1:35 PM ET If we learned one lesson from testing in Bahrain, it’s that three days is not long enough to get a proper reading of the competitive order. But, as is the tradition at this time of the year, it hasn’t stopped us trying. Trends started to develop over the three days in Bahrain
10:03 AM ET The European soccer season is a marathon. We freak out early over weird results and small sample sizes, only for the world to (mostly) right itself by Christmas. But once the calendar changes, we get a much better feel for what we should really be freaking out about. Back in early January,
10:31 AM BST Ireland and Munster No.8 CJ Stander has announced he will retire from rugby at the end of the season. The news will come as a shock to rugby as Stander, 30, is starting for Ireland in the ongoing Six Nations, and is regarded as one of the finest back-rows in Europe. But
Lizelle Lee, the South Africa opening batter, has had a stellar run in the ongoing ODI series against India, and that has led to a steep rise in the women’s ODI rankings, where she is now the top batter, relegating England’s Tammy Beaumont to No. 2. Last week, after scoring 83* in the series opener,
9:40 AM ET Associated Press Tiger Woods is back in the game — digitally, at least. Woods has signed a long-term partnership with the company behind the PGA Tour 2K video game series, returning the 15-time major champion to an industry he once dominated with EA Sports. The deal was announced Tuesday, nearly a month
World Rugby has launched a new annual three-tier global women’s tournament as it seek to create more a competitive international landscape and grow the Women’s Rugby World Cup to 16 teams. WXV will start in 2023 and has initially been supported by a 6.4-million pound ($8.8 million) investment from the global governing body for the
7:00 AM ET Some rookie stars arrive in the NHL with their own gravitational pull, knocking a franchise out of its orbit. Minnesota Wild coach Dean Evason saw it happen first hand while with the Washington Capitals when Alex Ovechkin arrived. He was a player whose pulsating lifeforce, on and off the ice, infused every
7:00 AM ET Who says you can’t learn anything from MLB spring training games? We asked our MLB experts to put aside any notion that exhibition games — even ones that stop mid-inning for a mercy rule — don’t count for a minute to focus on what they have learned from this year’s early action
3:35 PM ET ESPN staff Who’s ready for 2021 NFL free agency? With Super Bowl LV in the rearview mirror, one of the strangest NFL offseasons ever is just getting started. We’ve already seen quarterback trades and other drama around star signal-callers, and the franchise tag window has come and gone with 10 players getting