World Sports News in Brief

Tennis: Osaka becomes world's highest-earning female athlete

Japan's Naomi Osaka has surpassed Serena Williams as the world's highest-paid female athlete, raking in US$37.4 million in prize money and endorsements over the last year, according to Forbes.

Tennis - Australian Open - Women's Singles Final - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, January 26, 2019. Japan's Naomi Osaka kisses her trophy after winning her match against Czech Republic's Petra Kvitova. (Reuters)
Tennis - Australian Open - Women's Singles Final - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, January 26, 2019. Japan's Naomi Osaka kisses her trophy after winning her match against Czech Republic's Petra Kvitova. (Reuters)

* Hertha Berlin celebrated their second successive win since the Bundesliga resumed after a fine performance gave them a 4-0 home derby victory over Union Berlin on Friday.

* Formula One's 10 teams have agreed cost-cutting measures including a budget cap of US$145 million (119 million pounds) for 2021, the BBC reported on Friday. The measures have yet to be approved officially by the governing FIA's World Motor Sport Council, by an e-vote due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that is seen as a formality and likely next week.

* Sofia Kenin and Bianca Andreescu will be among 16 women's players to compete in Charleston next month in the largest event held since the season was derailed in mid-March by the COVID-19 crisis, the Tennis Channel said on Friday. The Credit One Bank Invitational will be held without fans in an effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

* Australian tennis great Ashley Cooper, who won four Grand Slam singles titles in the 1950s, died at the age of 83 after a long battle with illness on Friday. He won the Australian championship, Wimbledon and US Nationals in 1958, one of only 11 men to claim three Grand Slam crowns in a calendar year.

* Borussia Dortmund midfielder Axel Witsel will not be fit in time for Saturday's Bundesliga match at VfL Wolfsburg but Emre Can and teenager Giovanni Reyna have returned to training following injuries and are available, coach Lucien Favre said on Friday.

* Fans may not be allowed to support their club at stadiums when Denmark's Superliga season resumes amid the COVID-19 pandemic but AGF Aarhus will allow them to be present at Ceres Park to cheer their team on, albeit virtually. The club will allow fans to be present via the video conferencing tool Zoom, with their feed displayed on several screens that face the pitch.

* Franz Beckenbauer has been invited to watch Bayern Munich's behind-closed-doors home match against Eintracht Frankfurt this weekend, he said on Friday (May 22).

* Novak Djokovic will gather some of the world's best players for a tennis tournament in the Balkans next month, with the professional season on a coronavirus-enforced hiatus. In a statement, a spokesman for world number one Djokovic said that the Adria Tour will be held between June 13-July 5 in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia.

* Slovakia's top-tier soccer league will resume on June 13 in a shortened format of five rounds of championship and relegation groups if state authorities approve proposed conditions, the Union of League Clubs (ULK) said on Friday.

* Formula One's hopes of hosting two races at Silverstone were dealt a blow on Friday (May 22) as elite sport was not handed any exemption to the UK government's plans to introduce a 14-day quarantine period for those entering the country.

* Bayern Munich will not activate a 120-million-euro (US$130 million) option to buy on-loan Brazilian star Philippe Coutinho from Barcelona, the German champions' chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told Der Spiegel magazine on Friday (May 22).

* Chelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante is prepared to sit out the remainder of the Premier League season, if it resumes, after expressing concerns over returning to training, British media have reported.

Reuters, CNA