Before the IPL Auction 2025, Rediff.com delves into the top 10 most expensive players in IPL history, exploring their impact on the game and the factors that have made them so valuable.
Sofia Kenin, defending champion Belinda Bencic and third seed Elina Svitolina made swift exits at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
Former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 7-6 in the first round of the Dubai tennis championships on Monday while US teenager Sloane Stephens was eliminated in three sets to cap a miserable debut trip to the Gulf.
The Australian Open champion, who is unbeaten in 2008, pulled out of the tournament citing a viral illness.
India's Rohan Bopanna joined forces with Marcin Matkowski to reach the doubles semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
Unseeded Swede Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley of Australia captured their second ATP World Tour team title on Saturday evening, beating second seeds Leander Paes of India and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-3 in the final of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships.
Reader Ajay Kanjani sent us a picture of Tommy Haas.
The proposed ICC Test Championship could be delayed with the world body, on Tuesday, conceding that it faced commercial challenges to start the ambitious tournament in 2013.
Mahesh Bhupathi entered his first final of this season. He and French partner Michael Llodra overcame a strong challenge from India's Rohan Bopanna and Rajeev Ram of the United States in the semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships on Friday.
India's Sania Mirza clinched her second doubles title of the season after she combined with partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands to defeat Nadia Petrova and Katarina Srebotnik in the title clash of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, on Saturday.
The Indian ace and Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual, seeded seventh, lost 3-6, 3-6 to the unseeded Chinese combination of Jie Zheng and Yung-Jan Chan in the first round. Sania bowed out of the singles on Monday.
Lakshya Sen, who won both his matches to play his part in the silver medal-winning effort in men's team event, too dropped one spot to world number 15. Kidambi Srikanth gained a spot to 20th.
Maxwell eyes off shock red-ball return for World Test Championship series
The fourth-seeded Indo-Canadian pair got the better of second seeds Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands and Romania's Horea Tecau 4-6, 7-6(9), 11-9 in a close semi-final.
International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Haroon Lorgat has revealed that a proposal to have a World Test Championship, devised to rescue the longest, oldest and best form of the game from oblivion, is in jeopardy.
India's Rohan Bopanna and his partner Daniel Nestor grabbed their second ATP title.
Reader Ronnie Pereira met tennis ace Roger Federer at the Dubai Open.
India number one Somdev Devvarman registered the biggest win of his career, beating world No 5 Juan Martin Del Potro in the first round of the Dubai Duty Free Championships, on Tuesday. The victory, though, was achieved after the Argentine retired mid-way through the contest.
Serena Williams has pulled out of this week's Dubai Tennis Championships.
Novak Djokovic extended his winning streak to 17 matches by beating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 7-6 in the Dubai tennis championship semi-finals on Friday to stay on track for a potential final with holder Roger Federer.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty assured India of a men's doubles medal at the Badminton Asia Championships after 52 years after making it to the semi-finals in Dubai.
Cricket's World Test championship will not begin until 2017, International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Haroon Lorgat announced, in Dubai, on Monday.
Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi continued their fine form and advanced to the men's doubles quarter-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Championships.
The second seeded Indo-Czech pair beat the German-Belgian combination 2-6, 7-6(6), 10-7 in the semi-finals of the US $1,619,500 hard court event.
All eyes will be on Indian ace Saina Nehwal when she returns to the court after an injury lay-off at the All England Championship, hoping to better last year's runner-up finish at the prestigious event which begins with the qualifiers in Birmingham.
World number one Novak Djokovic beat fellow-Serb Janko Tipsarevic 6-1, 7-6 in the quarter-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday to set up a meeting with Andy Murray in the last four.
Manavaditya Rathore, son of Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore, clinched the gold medal in junior men's trap at the 4th Asian Shotgun Championships in Al Ain, Dubai on Tuesday.
Venus Williams won her 40th singles title on Saturday by defeating unseeded Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 to win the Dubai Championships. It was the 28-year-old American's seventh triumph in her last eight finals, with her last title coming at the WTA Championships in Doha in November.
World No. 3 Sindhu thrashed Yamaguchi 21-9, 21-13 in just 36 minutes to top Group A in women's singles at the Sheikh Hamdan Indoor Stadium. This was her last group stage match.
Top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth have sealed their spots at the prestigious BWF World Superseries Finals for the second successive time.
Roger Federer surprisingly dropped the first set against little-known Malek Jaziri before putting the Tunisian upstart in his place with a 5-7, 6-0, 6-2 win to reach the second round of the Dubai Championships on Monday.
'I never thought we would get him for that price because of his performance being tremendous in the last couple of years in T20Is and ODIs for Australia.'
Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer will play her first match at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships in Dubai on Monday, a year after she was denied an entry visa to compete in the tournament.
Unseeded Bopanna and Rajeev Ram hit seven aces and converted one of seven break-point opportunities to beat Victor Hanescu and Lukas Rosol 4-6, 7-5, 10-4 in 79 minutes. Later in the day, Bhupathi and Llodra also came from behind to oust the fourth seeded pair of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski, winning 4-6, 6-4, 10-8.
Caroline Wozniacki reached the final of the Dubai tennis championships by beating Serbian sixth seed Jelena Jankovic 7-5, 6-3 on Saturday.
Top seed Simona Halep came back from a set down for the third time in the tournament to beat Kazakhstan's rising star Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(5) to win the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships for the second time on Saturday. In a battle that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours, the match came down to a tiebreak where two shots that went agonisingly wide for Rybakina eventually decided the title in front of a noisy crowd that constantly chanted Halep's name.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna may have fought hard to be sent as a team to the Olympics but they don't have much of a chance on the medal front given the line-up of stars which will compete in London, feels former Davis Cup captain Jaideep Mukherjea.
Singh had fought the 2019 Lok Sabha election unsuccessfully from the South Delhi constituency as a Congress candidate.
Lalith Babu, R B Ramesh and S P Sethuraman are among 23 players who share the lead after the first two rounds in the Dubai Open chess championship.
Rohan Bopanna and his partner Pablo Cuevas knocked out fifth seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram after a three-set battle to progress to the quarterfinals of the ATP Monte Carlo Masters.