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Sports news of the week

Cristiano Ronaldo Tests Positive for Coronavirus and Enters Isolation

The star forward tested positive while on international duty with Portugal. He is asymptomatic, national team officials said.

Cristiano Ronaldo, one of soccer’s biggest stars and among the world’s most famous athletes, has tested positive for the coronavirus, Portugal’s soccer federation announced Tuesday. The federation’s statement said Ronaldo was not displaying symptoms of Covid-19, and that he had entered isolation, away from the rest of Portugal’s players. Those players continued their preparations for a match against Sweden on Wednesday in Lisbon. “Following the positive case, the remaining players underwent new tests Tuesday morning,” Portugal’s federation said in a statement. “All tested negative.”

Ronaldo, 35, will miss Wednesday’s Nations Cup game against Sweden, the federation said. Ronaldo played for Portugal in a friendly against Spain last week and in a scoreless Nations League draw against France on Sunday. On Monday, he posted a photo of himself dining with his smiling teammates on his social media accounts. “United on and off the field,” the caption read. Ronaldo’s positive test confirmed the worst fear of some European clubs, who had fought with FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, to alter rules that require them to release players to represent their national teams during scheduled international breaks. Many clubs feared that sending their players on long trips to virus hot spots — particularly in South America, where qualifying for the 2022 World Cup began last week — could leave them vulnerable to infection or cause them to bring the virus back to their European teams.

Players who did travel now will face quarantines or other restrictions — and potentially even miss league games — upon their return to certain countries, including the United States.Ronaldo, who plays for the Italian club Juventus, had been spared infection earlier this year when the virus swept through his team and the Italian league system. At least three Juventus players — Paulo Dybala, Daniele Rugani and Blaise Matuidi — tested positive in the first wave of cases earlier this year. Ronaldo is not the first soccer star to test positive this fall as Europe’s top leagues start their new seasons and players journey home for national team duty. The Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba was found to be positive when he turned up for a training camp with France’s national team in August, weeks after the Brazilian star Neymar and two of his teammates at the French club Paris St.-Germain are believed to have caught the virus during a postseason vacation in Spain.

The Lakers'Winding Path Ends With a Championship

The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Miami Heat in six games to take home the franchise’s 17th championship. It was the fourth title for LeBron James.

It was not a season. For the Los Angeles Lakers, it was an impediment course. It was 12 months packed with tragedies and togetherness. It was disjointed and odd, unprecedented and infrequently disagreeable, an odyssey that started for them in a Chinese language lodge amid a geopolitical feud and resulted in a principally empty area at Walt Disney World, the location of the world’s most famous bubble because the invention of chewing gum. However for all of the disruptive forces that rocked the N.B.A., the Lakers triumphed ultimately.The Lakers received their 17th championship — and their first with LeBron James as their centerpiece — with a 106-93 victory over the Miami Warmth on Sunday night time in Recreation 6 of the N.B.A. finals.

A mere 355 days after the Lakers performed their season opener earlier than a packed crowd at Staples Heart in Los Angeles, they toppled the Warmth, 4 video games to 2, to complete off their playoff run on an elaborate made-for-TV sound stage that lacked spectators, except for a couple of of the gamers’ relations and pals It was one of many laborious realities of competing for a title in a pandemic, one which had pressured the N.B.A. to droop its season for greater than 4 months earlier than play resumed in July throughout the league’s self-contained slice of Disney World exterior Orlando, Fla. The Lakers went about their enterprise in isolation, profitable all of it as their followers cheered from dwelling. And no participant was extra good than James, who, at age 35, was named the finals’ most beneficial participant for the fourth time in his profession. He led Sunday’s rout with 28 factors, 14 rebounds and 10 assists. After making his ninth journey to the finals previously 10 seasons, and his 10th look over all, James has now received 4 championships with three franchises.

A preseason journey to China for 2 video games in opposition to the Nets become a world incident when Daryl Morey, the Houston Rockets’ common supervisor, tweeted his help for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, angering the Chinese government. The Lakers had been restricted to their lodge for days. After returning dwelling, James criticized Morey for being “misinformed or probably not educated on the scenario.” James, who has enterprise pursuits in China, was bashed by many followers for showing to downplay the significance of free speech. Then, the unimaginable: On Jan. 26, Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, had been amongst 9 individuals who died in a helicopter crash exterior of Los Angeles. Bryant, an iconic and polarizing star, had spent his complete 20-year taking part in profession with the Lakers, profitable 5 championships, before he retired in 2016. Simply over two weeks later, the season was indefinitely suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Because the hiatus dragged on, protests in opposition to police brutality and racial injustice roiled the nation, and plenty of gamers used their platforms as celebrities to bring attention to those issues. Some even questioned whether or not the season needs to be canceled in order to not be a distraction. But, via all of it — calamities, large and small — the Lakers remained determined to chase the franchise’s first championship since 2010, which was additionally Bryant’s final title.

Rafael Nadal Routs Novak Djokovic at French Open to Catch Roger Federer

Rafael Nadal won his 20th Grand Slam men’s singles championship to tie Roger Federer’s record. It was Nadal’s 13th title at the French Open.

Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic in the French Open final on Sunday to tie Roger Federer with 20 Grand Slam singles championships. Neither Novak Djokovic nor Roger Federer could resist Rafael Nadal on Sunday. Nadal made astonishingly quick work of them both in the French Open final, overwhelming Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 player, 6-0, 6-2, 7-5, to equal Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam singles titles.

It was quite possibly Nadal’s finest performance at Roland Garros, which sounds like a reach considering that he had already won 12 Grand Slam singles title on the same rectangle of red clay.But there was nothing unlucky about No. 13. He was on target from the opening game, breaking Djokovic’s serve under the closed roof at the Philippe Chatrier Court. Nadal, 34 years old but still an irresistible force, ripped groundstrokes with depth and purpose, hunted down drop shots, read Djokovic’s mind and serve and kept his unforced errors to a strict minimum. He made just two in the opening set — one of those on the opening point — and 14 in the match, giving his more erratic and increasingly edgy rival little time or space to find his mojo. Djokovic, the 2016 French Open champion, is one of only two men to beat Nadal at Roland Garros. He had defeated Nadal in their last three Grand Slam matches against each other. The most recent of those came at the 2019 Australian Open final, where Djokovic overwhelmed Nadal, 6-3, 6-2, 6-3, in what Djokovic still maintains was the finest performance of his career.

But that rout took place on a hardcourt, Djokovic’s best surface, at the major tournament he has won most often. Sunday’s payback came in Nadal’s kingdom.
“Sorry for today,” Nadal said to Djokovic on court. Later, he elaborated. “As you know, I am not a big fan of revenge,” Nadal said. “I just accept when the things are not going the way that I like. In Australia, he played amazing.” He added: “Today was a little bit the opposite.” Djokovic had not lost a completed match in all of 2020, his only defeat coming in the fourth round of the United States Open when he was disqualified for striking a ball and inadvertently hitting a line umpire in the throat.
“I thought I was in a great form,” Djokovic said. “Certainly I could have played better, especially in the first two sets. But, you know, just he did surprise me with the way he was playing, the quality of tennis he was producing.”
“Today, you showed why you are the king of clay,” Djokovic said during the awards ceremony. “I experienced it in my own skin.”