[attach id=574423 size="medium"][/attach]
Tennis: Two-times Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova (picture) has entered the draw for next month’s French Open four months after suffering a serious hand injury, she said yesterday. The 27-year-old was stabbed by a knife-wielding intruder in her home in the Czech Republic in December. “My name will appear on the entry list for Roland Garros tomorrow because I had made good progress in my recovery process and I want to give myself every last opportunity to be able to compete at one of my favourite events,” Kvitova said. The French Open starts on May 22.
Rugby Union: Former All Blacks and Harlequins fly-half Nick Evans has announced that he will retire from rugby at the end of the season. Evans, who began his career at Otago as a full-back, made his test debut for New Zealand against England in 2004 and won a total of 16 caps, scoring 103 points. He last played for the All Blacks at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The 36-year-old joined English Premiership side Harlequins in 2008 and went on to make 206 appearances for the club, scoring a club record 2,217 points with 30 tries, 309 conversions, 476 penalties and seven drop goals.
Motor Racing: Formula One has appointed CAA Sports, a division of the US-based Creative Artists Agency, to represent its global sponsorship rights. “CAA Sports will be responsible for taking the Formula One brand into new markets and expanding the sponsorship portfolio to include new and innovative commercial partners,” it said in a statement. Sean Bratches, Formula One’s managing director for commercial operations, said the appointment was part of a strategic growth plan “to support existing partners and broaden the number of sponsors coming into the sport”.
Tennis: Novak Djokovic survived a second-round scare to beat Gilles Simon at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters. Simon served for the match at 5-4 in the third set but world number two Djokovic broke back before breaking again to secure victory in just over two and a half hours. Djokovic, winner of the event in 2013 and 2015, forced 16 break points in the match and took six of them, but lost five of the six he faced on his own serve. But he made the breaks when they mattered and clinched victory from his first match point to progress 6-3 3-6 7-5. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is out of the competition after losing to fellow Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. Seventh seed Tsonga won the first set on a tie-break but the world number 56 battled back to win 6-7 (3/7) 6-2 6-3 to reach the third round.