Rafael Nadal - players.bio

5 players, $1.1 billion: NBA free agency starts with a bang

NEW YORK: The NBA generated more basketball-related income than ever this past season, the total number coming up just short of $9 billion.

Rafael Nadal taking extra care with COVID scare at Wimbledon

Rafael Nadal is not taking any chances with COVID-19 and staying indoors when he is not on court, the Spaniard said on Thursday with three big names in the men's singles draw having pulled out of Wimbledon after contracting the virus. Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut joined Croatian Marin Cilic, the former U.S. Open champion and 2017 Wimbledon runner-up, and Italian eighth seed Matteo Berrettini, who lost to Novak Djokovic in the 2021 final, in withdrawing from the Grand Slam. Nadal, who tested positive for coronavirus at the end of last year, said he was taking extra precautions. "No, no, no paranoia at all. Reality," he told reporters after reaching the third round with a 6-4 6-4 4-6 6-3 victory over Ricardas Berankis on Thursday. "That's the thing. A good friend of mine today had to pull out, Roberto Bautista, with another case. When this kind of stuff happens it's because probably a lot of cases are around."

Rafael Nadal grinds past Ricardas Berankis into Wimbledon third round

The second seed duly won 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to reach the third round but his 307th Grand Slam match win, putting him one ahead of Martina Navratilova and fourth on the all-time list, will not linger long in his memory. An off-key Nadal never looked in serious danger of having his bid for the calendar-year Slam wrecked by the world number 106, but he knows he will have to play much better in the rounds ahead to claim his third Wimbledon title. The statistics rather told the tale with Nadal unusually making more unforced errors than winners -- 39-35. "Not the best start honestly but I finished playing well. The fourth set has been the level of tennis for me, important improvement. The rest of the things I have room to improve," Nadal told reporters. "But, yeah, it's a victory in four sets, spend three hours on the court again, that helps."