Tennis: Venus Williams (picture) has been fined $5,000 for shirking post-match press duties following her Australian Open first-round defeat to Britain’s Johanna Konta. The tournament fine is Williams’s second in a year and the biggest ever handed to a woman for skipping press obligations at a grand slam. The seven-time major champion was fined $3,000 for the same offence at last year’s French Open after she lost to fellow American Sloane Stephens.

Motor racing: Ferrari sporting director Massimo Rivola is stepping down to take on a new role at the helm of the team’s young driver academy, media reported yesterday. Gazzetta dello Sport said he would take over from Luca Baldisserri, who has left Maranello to manage the career of former academy driver Lance Stroll. There was no official confirmation from Ferrari but a letter from Rivola, who joined Ferrari in 2009 after working as team manager for Minardi and their successors Toro Rosso, was circulating on social media, yesterday.

Rugby Union: Saracens winger Chris Ashton’s hopes of reigniting his England career during the Six Nations Championship were ended by a 10-week ban yesterday that will rule him out of the entire tournament. Ashton, named in new coach Eddie Jones’s first England squad after winning his last cap in June 2014, was found guilty of making contact with the eye area of an opponent at a European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) disciplinary hearing. The 28-year-old’s ban will end on March 28. England begin their Six Nations campaign at Murrayfield against Scotland on February 6, and end it on March 19 against France.

Cricket: Paceman Kane Richardson claimed his maiden five-wicket haul to script India’s spectacular collapse and bowl Australia to a 25-run victory in the high-scoring fourth one day international yesterday. Three batsmen struck centuries in the 671-run match between the world’s top two one-day teams but it was Richardson’s (5-68) incisive bowling that clinched the contest, while also earning him the man-of-the-match award.

Basket, NBA: Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook each had a double-double, while Enes Kanter scored a season-high 25 points and grabbed eight rebounds, as Oklahoma City Thunder beat Denver Nuggets 110-104. “Enes did a really good job tonight,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said of the centre. “He was really active on the glass, he got a lot of offensive rebounds, he kept possessions alive, he scored, he did a lot of really good things.” Westbrook finished with 27 points and 12 assists but fell short of his third straight triple-double. The guard has five this season and 24 in his career.

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