MELBOURNE -- Naomi Osaka offered a light-hearted apology to her racket sponsor for throwing a tantrum against Zheng Saisai at the Australian Open on Wednesday as the defending champion overcame her frustrations to set up a third-round clash with Coco Gauff.

AFTER being a staple of the Petron team in the Philippine Superliga (PSL), middle blocker Mika Reyes had decided to leave the team and join the Sta. Lucia Lady Realtors.

MIGHTY Sports Philippines competes at the 31^st Dubai International Basketball Tournament which begins today with its eyes fixed on the title after finishing third in the last edition of the tournament.

GM Alireza Firouzja (born June 18, 2003) is an Iranian chess prodigy. Aside from winning the Iranian Chess Championship at 12 years of age (the youngest ever to do so) he is the second-youngest player (after China’s Wei Yi and just a bit younger than Wesley So) ever to reach a rating of 2700, accomplishing this aged 16 years and 1 month.

Longtime fans still remember the outrage that greeted the announcement of the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal as the National Basketball Association’s Most Valuable Player at the turn of the century. No, it wasn’t because he didn’t deserve the honor. To the contrary, it was precisely because he did; he garnered 120 out of a possible 121 votes cast by a panel of writers and broadcasters for the award. The lone dissenter? Fred Hickman, then with CNN, who went with the Sixers’ Allen Iverson. “It was crazy,” the one-time Sports Emmy winner recalled of the backlash. “I got death threats.”

FOLLOWING the successful showing of the Philippine skateboarding team in last month’s 30^th Southeast Asian Games (SEA), gold medal-winning downhill skater Jaime De Lange hopes that the gains they got in the biennial sporting meet be sustained so as to get the sport the attention it deserves here in the country.

MELBOURNE — Rafael Nadal hit the ground running at the Australian Open on Tuesday by hammering unseeded Bolivian Hugo Dellien 6-2, 6-3, 6-0 to reach the second round.

THE FIBA 3x3 World Tour unfurls its ninth edition in April and is set to make a stop for one of its legs in the Philippines after five years.

ENTERING her third year with ONE Championship, Filipino female atomweight fighter Gina “Conviction” Iniong said she is very thankful for the opportunity presented to her to showcase what she is capable of doing.

MELBOURNE — Former champion Maria Sharapova made her earliest Australian Open exit in a decade on Tuesday and said she was unsure whether her troublesome shoulder injury would allow her to return next year.

DO-IT-ALL San Beda Red Lions guard Evan Nelle is packing his bag for the University Athletic Association of the Philippines and will be playing for De La Salle Green Archers.

LOS ANGELES — Jayson Tatum scored 27 points, Kemba Walker and Jaylen Brown added 20 apiece, and the Boston Celtics overwhelmed the visiting Los Angeles Lakers 139-107 Monday night.