A total of 24 teams will play in the knockout Qualifiers on February 1 and 2 to decide which 12 teams will play the year-end Finals.
World No 1 Rafael Nadal, who is hoping to recover from a knee injury to play in the season-ending showpiece, heads the other group and will face Belgian David Goffin, Bulgarian debutant Grigor Dimitrov and Austrian Dominic Thiem.
The IOC has remained committed to staging the Tokyo Games as planned from July 24-Aug. 9, saying on Tuesday after a meeting with international sports federations that measures against the virus were delivering results.
India-Pakistan peace seem like a pipe dream but it does turn into a reality at sporting events like the ongoing Asian Games
IMAGES from the matches played at the Miami Open on Thursday
Australian maverick Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the French Open on Friday, according to tournament officials, robbing the Grand Slam event of some guaranteed fireworks.
Veteran Indian tennis star Leander Paes won his second Challenger-level title of the season but Ramkumar Ramanathan had to be content with a runner-up finish at the $ 75000 clay-court event, in Florida.
The Azlan Shah Cup is the latest sporting event to be hit by the deadly coronavirus, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and infected 86,000 people across the world.
Sania Mirza squandered a one-set lead and crashed out in qualifying at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, losing to Canada's Aleksandra Wozniak 6-2, 3-6, 2-6.
Tomic has withdrawn from his last four tournaments, pushing his ranking to depths that will require him to battle on lower-tier tours or beg for wildcards from tournament organisers next year.
Images from Day 3 of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.
Rafael Nadal to play for Spain in new Davis Cup Finals while World No 1 Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, have already said they would support the ATP Cup -- seen as a rival team event to the Davis Cup -- when it begins in Australia just a few weeks after the ITF's flagship event.
India's representation in the singles events of the World Table Tennis Championship was reduced to just four players, three of them women, after six others failed to qualify for the main draw.
'We are truly blessed to bear witness to the divine talents of, and scarcely human displays put on by, Roger Federer and his bromance buddy, rival, nemesis and plausible co-claimant to GOAT ('greatest of all time') status, Rafael Nadal,' says Arvind Subramanian, who steps down as chief economic adviser to the Government of India in September.
Serena Williams survived another scare to beat older sister Venus 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday in the latest instalment of their reluctant on-court sibling rivalry to reach the quarter-finals of the inaugural Top Seed Open in Lexington, Kentucky.
Sindhu said she has to watch out for the Chinese players as well since they have been missing from the circuit for some time.
India's top singles tennis player Somdev Devvarman has been handed a direct entry in the main draw of the ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament after Estonia's Jurgen Zopp pulled out of the event due to a back injury.
Kei Nishikori swept aside Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup.
Images from Day 4 of the Wimbledon tennis championships played in London, on Wednesday.
Images from Day 6 at the French Open, at Roland Garros, in Paris, on Friday.
Djokovic helped Serbia to a 3-0 victory over Japan in their Group A opener on Wednesday at La Caja Magica where a revamped Davis Cup climax is being contested by 18 nations over seven days.
Juan Martin Del Potro, who reached the quarter-final of the Australian Open on two occasions, has been battling problems with his right knee since June last year
Ace paddler Sharath Kamal, who clinched a historic mixed doubles bronze with Manika Batra at the Asian Games last year, feels the road to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics seems difficult in the newly-introduced category, but once the spot is booked, a medal win is possible.
Leander Paes regained his place in the top-50, courtesy a Challenger title win at the Newport Beach event. The triumph took the veteran Indian tennis star 14 places up, to 47 in the latest rankings, issued on Monday.
Images from Day 7 of the 2021 US Open in New York on Sunday.
Cricket was the first to hit the restart button in Indian sports with the IPL, albeit on foreign shores of UAE, in a strict bio-secure bubble.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday.
The centre-back was at the Madrid Open earlier this week, reportedly to discuss a 16-team knockout tournament with ATP Tour chief Chris Kermode. It would potentially replace the former World Team Cup event on the ATP calendar that was played from 1975 to 2012 ahead of Roland Garros.
I tried to reason in my mind that wouldn't beating Pakistan again and again -- in the league matches and in the knockouts if they made it -- be a better tribute to our martyred soldiers? A revealing excerpt from Vinod Rai's Not Just A Nightwatchman: My Innings In The BCCI.
India's report card on the eigth day of the 2016 Olympics.
Greek third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas battled back from a set down to beat Serbia's Filip Krajinovic 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoor championship on Friday. The win took Tsitsipas into his 10th semi-final of the season where he will face top seed Roger Federer, who was handed a walkover after Swiss compatriot Stan Wawrinka withdrew before their quarter-final with a back issue.
The Kolkata-based lad beat Yew-Ming Si of Malaysia to enter the second round in the MSLTA-ITF Satellite tournament.
Asian champions India have been clubbed along side arch-rivals Pakistan in the same pool in the men's Hockey World League (HWL) Semi-Final 2017 to be held in London.
Petra Kvitova moved closer to a third straight Connecticut Open crown after defeating Ekaterina Makarova 6-3, 6-1 to reach the semi-finals on Thursday.
India's Sania Mirza slipped eight places down to 92nd in the latest Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings issued on Monday. Sania, who is currently nursing a wrist injury, has 745 ranking points in her kitty.
The Indian markswoman started off well and went on to finish with 560 points, which was enough to earn her place in the final.
India's Manika Batra and Mouma Das lost 3-0 to Tianwei Feng and Mengyu Yu of Singapore in the women's sinlges final.
