Baseball: Ichiro Suzuki collected the 4,000th hit of his career as New York Yankees beat Toronto Blue Jays this week. Suzuki singled off Toronto starter RA Dickey to reach the landmark, prompting a lengthy break as his team-mates came out of the dugout to cheer the Japanese outfielder. Suzuki now has 2,722 hits in MLB, the rest having coming in his native Japan before he signed for Seattle Mariners in 2001. He becomes only the third player in the pro game to reach 4,000 hits following Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.

Cricket: Steve Smith reached his maiden test century with a six as Australia, trailing 3-0 in the series, took control of the fifth and final Ashes test against England at the Oval yesterday. The Australian all-rounder finished on 138 not in his team’s imposing 492 for nine declared. At the close of a rain-affected day England had battled to 32 for no wicket in reply. England openers Alastair Cook and Joe Root survived 17.3 overs to give the hosts some hope of avoiding the follow-on but they still trailed the touring side by 460 runs when bad light forced the players off a few minutes early.

Tennis: Andy Murray will begin the defence of his US Open title against Frenchman Michael Llodra. Third seed Murray was placed on the same side as world no. 1 Novak Djokovic when the draw was made at Flushing Meadows yesterday, meaning there can be no repeat of last year’s final or the recent Wimbledon final between the two, both of which were won by Murray. Roger Federer, seeded seventh after his 2013 struggles, was drawn in the bottom half and is a potential quarter-final op-ponent for Rafael Nadal.