Top shuttlers, including Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth, are likely to leave for Malaysia and Singapore via Doha to participate in the last two Olympic qualifiers next month due to travel bans imposed by the two countries in the wake of unprecedented spike in COVID-19 cases in India.
Brazil will face the winners of Tuesday's other semi-final between Spain and Japan in Saitama.
Briton Andy Murray and Germany's Angelique Kerber were named ITF World Champions on Tuesday, capping stellar years for the men's and women's world number ones. Murray, whose brother Jamie was named doubles World Champion along with Brazil's Bruno Soares, won Wimbledon in July before becoming the first player to win two Olympic singles gold medals when he retained his crown in Rio de Janeiro in August.
Trap shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Kynan Chenai were unable to improve upon their opening day's performance and failed to qualify for the men's trap semi-finals at the Rio Olympics on Monday.
With less than three months to go until the start of the Games, work on parts of Rio de Janeiro's Olympic Park and Olympic Village was halted on Monday amid fears for the safety of workers, Brazil's Ministry of Labour and Employment said.
The Datafolha polling institute survey published in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper also found that 63 percent of those asked in the latest poll think the Olympics will bring more costs than benefits, up from 38 percent three years ago.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
While the top names in badminton haven't openly discussed mental health and wellbeing issues in the way that gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka have done of late, Olympic expectations nonetheless weigh heavily on some.
Cypriot weightlifter Antonis Martasidis and an unnamed Greek competitor have tested positive for banned substances and have been expelled from the Rio Olympics, their teams said on Friday.
'Coaches have been trying to create match situations like when it is 18-all or 19-all. I am focusing on how I have to play and win those moments, so I hope it will help.'
The gold went to China's Hou Zhihui with an effort of 210kg (94kg+116kg), who created Olympic records in all three categories (snatch, clean and jerk and Total).
Venus Williams staged a spirited comeback to down third seed Petra Kvitova 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 and reach the third round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Saturday.
The French Tennis Federation (FFT) has provisionally suspended Benoit Paire, Kristina Mladenovic and Caroline Garcia for 'damaging' the organisation's image by their behaviour at this month's Rio Olympics.
IMAGES from the football matches played across Europe on Sunday.
His wards might have failed to break the medal jinx at the just-concluded Rio Olympics, but Indian men's hockey team's chief coach Roelant Oltmans says their results in the quadrennial extravaganza were satisfactory if not ideal. India finished fourth in group stage having won two, drawn one and lost two. One of India's win came against eventual gold medallists, Argentina. But the Men in Blue failed to go beyond the quarterfinals having lost 1-3 to silver medallists Belgium.
In the twilight of his career and prone to injuries like never before, ace Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt is still eager to continue and insists that the thought of retirement has not even crossed his mind yet.
Kishen Narsi, chairman of the AIBA's ad-hoc committee for India, says would be happy to guide Vijender Singh in the best possible manner in his bid to make it to Rio.
Kenya reacted angrily on Tuesday to calls by the German Athletics Federation (DLV) that its athletes be barred from the Rio Olympic Games due to doping concerns.
Indian duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna entered the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles event of tennis competition at the Rio Olympics with a straight-set win over Australian pair of Samantha Stosur and John Peers in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday. Sania and Bopanna, who are being touted as India's medal hope at the Olympics, won their opening round match 7-5 6-4 in 73 minutes.
Bhavani, who failed to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics, said she didn't know how to pick and choose tournaments and so competed in all of them.
As we prepare to cruise into the New Year, Rediff.com gives you a glance back, through photos, into all the sporting moments that made the last 12 months memorable.
Describing the year that's coming to an end as "fantastic" for her personally, Rio Olympic Games silver medal-winning shuttler Pusarla V Sindhu said she was now targeting the no.1 world ranking among women after reaching a career-best six at present. "It has been a fantastic year for me, because winning a medal at the Olympics is a big achievement. It's a dream come true. Also, I always had in mind that I wanted to win a Super Series title and that also was fulfilled (at the China Open)," Sindhu told reporters on the sidelines of a promotional event in Mumbai on Thursday.
Saina Nehwal's comeback may have ended with a gruelling opening round loss at the China Super Series Premier in Fuzhou but the London Olympics bronze medallist said she was satisfied with the way she played.
A ban imposed on Russia's Paralympic team to compete in Rio is cynical and immoral, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, while saying that Moscow acknowledged its mistakes and would improve the national anti-doping system.
Sunisa Lee came to Tokyo thinking the best she might do was win an all-around Olympic silver but the youngest member of the US gymnastics team grabbed the gold on Thursday after Simone Biles dropped out of the event over mental health concerns.
Indian archers bowed out of the team events after failing to get past the mighty Koreans for a second time in the Tokyo Olympics on Monday.
Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez of Spain won the Olympic men's doubles tennis title on Friday, beating Romania's Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau to secure their country's third gold medal of the Rio Games.
Once labelled mild and fragile, P V Sindhu has undergone an astounding transformation at Pullela Gopichand Academy - a mix and match of different exercises, on-court training and yoga that make up Sindhu's days, most of which begin with her starting practice at 4:15 am -- that is helping her slay the world's best, writes Nikita Puri
Ace marksman Abhinav Bindra belied expectations after failing to qualify for the finals of men's 10 air rifle event in the 51st ISSF World Championships, his hopes of earning an Olympic quota in this tournament going up in smoke.
For the second successive time, the Indian shooting team returned from the Olympics empty-handed, belying a billion hopes after promising to deliver like never before.
Russia has been banned from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics after the IOC found evidence of an "unprecedented systematic manipulation" of the anti-doping system that has led to a series of bans for the country's athletes in recent months.
The United States is expected to run away with the athletics competition in Rio, taking podium spots often the preserve of Russians such as double pole vault gold medalist Yelena Isinbayeva and 110m hurdles world champion Sergei Shubenkov.
Prachi Yadav finishes last in 200m canoe VL2 final
As the year 2016 draws to a close, vote for the best Indian sportsperson of the year.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case in the doping scandal involving international wrestler Narsingh Yadav, who was barred from participating in the Rio Olympics after banned substances were found in his urine samples.
Udayan Mane on Tuesday qualified for his maiden Olympic Games, becoming the second Indian male golfer after Anirban Lahiri to make it to the mega-event, starting in Tokyo from July 23.
Sanjeet Kumar won a gold medal in the 91 kg weight category at the Asian Boxing Championships.
In one of the biggest upsets for the India, medal hope Saina Nehwal crashed out of the Rio Games after suffering an straight-game loss upset against lower-ranked Maria Ulitina of Ukraine in her second Group G match at the Rio Olympics on Sunday.
With the coronavirus pandemic halting all sport activities, India's former chief badminton coach Vimal Kumar on Tuesday urged the government to allow the Olympic-bound athletes to continue their training after conducting the required tests. Following the respective directives of the Talengana and Karnataka governments, the Pullela Gopichand academy in Hyderbad and Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore have been shut down for two weeks.
Athlete OP Jaisha is confident that she can start her training next week having recovered well from H1N1 fever which she contracted during the Rio Olympics even though the SAI doctor has advised her a month's rest. "After getting discharged from the hospital on August 29, I am taking rest in my native - Thrissilery village near Manananthavady in Wayanad district. I will start from training from next week," Jaisha said.
