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Elena Rybakina makes honest ‘wasn’t nice’ admission after Victoria Mboko Canadian Open loss

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Elena Rybakina has reacted to her agonising defeat to Victoria Mboko in a thrilling semi-final at the 2025 Canadian Open.

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The world No 12 fell 6-1, 5-7, 6-7(4) to 18-year-old Canadian wildcard Mboko in a contest lasting two hours and 45 minutes in Montreal.

In the deciding set, Rybakina served for the match twice — at 5-4 and 6-5 — and she held a match point at 40-30 in the first of those two games.

The 2022 Wimbledon champion was vying for her second title of the season after she won the clay-court WTA 500 tournament in Strasbourg in May. She has previously won two WTA 1000 titles, which came in Indian Wells and Rome in 2023.

Rybakina had defeated Hailey Baptiste, Jacqueline Cristian, Dayana Yastremska and Marta Kostyuk to reach the last four in Montreal.

After losing to Mboko, Rybakina remained positive about her run despite her difficult exit.

“Yeah, it was tough match, but overall I think successful week for me. Slowly getting better on the court, so yeah,” she assessed.

The 26-year-old Kazakh also admitted that the heavy crowd support for home favourite Mboko was challenging to deal with.

“Yeah, that wasn’t nice, of course,” Rybakina said.

“I played in a lot of situations where the crowd was supporting the [other] player, but I would say that here it was pretty tough from very beginning.

“I already felt it from the first game we played, and especially when it’s in between the serves.

“It is what it is. This is something I was kind of expecting, and definitely it didn’t depend anyhow on my serve or in the mistakes I did or wrong choices. It was obvious that the crowd is going to cheer for their player.”

Davide Sanguinetti, who started coaching Rybakina in February 2025, set the former world No 3 an ambitious ranking target in a recent interview with SuperTennis.

“At the moment, I’m a sort of ferryman: I joined her team in February, without any work behind me,” the Italian said.

“She explained to me more or less what she had done, and I asked her for two years of collaboration because I have my own working method: in the first year I would like to maintain the status quo, maybe finish at number 6 in the rankings, and next year I would like to take her to number one in the world: she has all the potential.”

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Paige Spiranac’s surprising NFL fandom confession triggers heated debate over loyalty, authenticity, and fan culture

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The 2026 NFL Draft starts Thursday night in Pittsburgh, and the spotlight isn’t only on prospects and front offices. Golf influencer Paige Spiranac has again found herself pulled into NFL conversation, this time for her open support of multiple teams.

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With the Steelers hosting the first round, her long-standing connection to Pittsburgh has resurfaced. But it’s not just about hometown ties. Her broader fandom, which stretches beyond one franchise, continues to draw mixed reactions at a time when fan loyalty is often treated as non-negotiable.

Paige Spiranac roots for 2 NFL teams: Who are they?

Paige Spiranac has never hidden where her loyalties lie, even if they don’t fit the usual mold. She has consistently pointed to her roots while leaving space for other allegiances.

“Both my parents are from Pittsburgh so I’ve been a Steelers ..fan since the day I was born. I also love the Bills. It’s a complicated relationship…Who’s your team?” she previously asked her followers. It’s a candid admission, one that reflects personal history more than calculated fandom.

Still, the reaction has been sharp. NFL culture tends to rew ..

 

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Quiet moments on the course can say a lot about what’s coming next.

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Sometimes the most important work happens when nobody is really watching.
Lexi Thompson was out on the 18th green, working through her putting during a practice round ahead of the Chevron Championship in Houston.

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It’s a simple scene, but it shows the kind of quiet preparation that goes into these big tournaments—getting the feel of the greens, adjusting to conditions, and building trust in every stroke.

These are the small details that can shape how a player starts when the pressure kicks in.

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Predicting what will happen to Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson if LIV Golf collapses

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It looks like LIV Golf is over.

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The Saudi Public Investment Fund has reportedly decided that this league simply isn’t worth the hole it’s burning in their pocket, and they’re pulling funds at the end of 2026.

That gives them less than a year to seek new investment. While CEO Scott O’Neil seems confident, it’s going to be extremely difficult to secure funding for a league that is operating at such eye-watering losses.

So this probably pulls the curtain closed on one of the most turbulent, frustrating, confusing, and ridiculous eras in golfing history. Hopefully, we can all return to some reality after the year is over.

But there is still so much uncertainty surrounding golf’s future thanks to this. Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed saw the signs early and jumped ship, but they did that with some leverage. So what on earth is going to happen to the rest of these players who didn’t take the olive branch when it was offered to them?

Feelings will be hurt, and careers will be ended. Let’s take a look.

Jon Rahm rejoins the PGA Tour

Koepka returned to the PGA Tour under the returning member program, which saw him pay $5 million to charity, accept that he’ll receive no FedEx Cup bonus money, and agree he cannot be a sponsor exemption for the 2026 signature events.

 

That same deal was offered to Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. They didn’t accept it, but a similar offer will likely be handed out to them again.

 

If LIV Golf folds, Rahm will not hold the same leverage as Koepka did, but he is a bigger star at this stage of his career. Make no mistake, the PGA Tour will want him back immediately.

But Rahm does risk leaving himself without any options at all. Reed didn’t come straight back to the PGA Tour, so he’s spending a year on the DP World Tour first. You’d imagine Rahm would consider doing the same, but it might not be so easy for him.

Rahm is in a feud with the DP World Tour, as the only one of eight players to reject a deal which would have seen him retain his full-time membership. If Rahm agreed to play in six DP World Tour events this year, then he could have played on both LIV Golf and the tour. He did not agree.

For now, his membership is at risk. So, will it be possible for him to spend a season on the DP World Tour like Reed? Maybe not. That makes it all the more likely that Rahm will be back on the PGA Tour the moment LIV folds.

Bryson DeChambeau does YouTube full-time

With DeChambeau, I don’t think it’s as much of a done deal that he returns to the PGA Tour. Not immediately anyway.

He’s been negotiating his contract with LIV, which expires at the end of this season. During these negotiations, he’s made it very clear that he is completely willing to step away from full-time competition and be a full-time YouTuber.

DeChambeau’s channel has over two million subscribers, so he could feasibly do that with all of the money he’s making there.

He was annoyed to see LIV move to a four-day format, so he could commit himself fully to being the content king. It would be a wild thing to do, but it’s also exactly the kind of move you could see the two-time major winner making.

He could qualify for The Open Championship and the US Open, and earn enough points there to play The Masters and the PGA Championship. It’s possible.

He does seem to live for competition, so maybe YouTube won’t quite scratch the itch, but it is on the table for DeChambeau. At least for a year until his suspension expires. Out of Rahm and DeChambeau, the American is absolutely the least likely to take a deal.

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