Former para athlete, badminton player and coach Ramesh Tikaram passed away after battling the coronavirus for more than two weeks at a private hospital in Bengaluru, according to the Para Badminton Association of India.. The 51-year-old Arjuna award winner, a computer science engineer from BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru, tested positive for Covid-19 a day after he was admitted with respiratory problems on June 29 and was soon shifted to ICU and put on ventilator as he also had comorbidities. Tikaram had shown signs of recovery last week. His condition deteriorated last week. “His family members were monitoring his condition through video calls and doctors were planning to do a tracheostomy,” sources said.
India women’s team pulls out of England tour
Covid-19 continues to haunt international cricket. Now, it has emerged that the Indian women’s cricket team tour to England for a Tri-series in September has been cancelled. “The situation in the country is getting worse and worse. We had no option but to abandon our plans to send the team to England for a Tri-series that was to feature India, England and the South African women teams. We’ve conveyed our inability to come to UK to the ECB last week. In this situation, we can’t hold a camp even in England, as is there no clarity on when the regular commercial flights to London from India will resume,” a BCCI source told TOI on Sunday.
Qatar to host 2020 AFC Champions League in the West region
The Qatar Football Association (QFA) has been confirmed as the host member association for the 2020 AFC Champions League matches in the West region from the group stage to the semi-finals, which will take place from September 14 to October 3, 2020. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) had earlier reiterated its commitment to complete the 2020 AFC Club Competitions in a centralised venue with all matches in the group stage for both the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup to be played in full and the knock-out stages consisting of single match ties. The deadline for bids to host the centralised AFC Champions League West region matches was ended on July 13. "Member Associations have until July 24, 2020 to submit their interest to host the AFC Champions League matches in the East Zone and July 17, 2020 to stage the AFC Cup matches," the continental governing body of football said in a statement.
Serena Williams to return to action next month
Serena Williams is planning to make her return to competition at a new hard-court tournament in Kentucky next month. It'll be the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion's first action since playing for the US in the Fed Cup in February, before all sanctioned tennis was shut down the next month because of the coronavirus pandemic. Williams had helped defeat Latvia, where she defeated Jelena Ostapenko and was beaten by Anastasija Sevastova.
The women's and men's professional tennis tours are scheduled to resume in August.
The Kentucky event, called the Top Seed Open, announced Thursday that Williams and 2017 U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens will be in the field when play begins there Aug. 10.
Williams already has said she will enter the next scheduled Grand Slam tournament, the U.S. Open, which is supposed to begin in New York on Aug. 31.
She had previously confirmed her intentions to chase a 24th Grand Slam title at the US Open beginning August 31, saying that she "cannot wait" to return to the Flushing Meadows.
The US Open, which will be played behind closed-doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will feature the men's and women's singles main-draw events, each with the traditional 128 players, and men's and women's doubles events, with 32 teams in each competition (down from 64 teams)
