
‘Dreadful.. why change?' – Football fans moan as Sky Sports unveil new scoreline graphic as 2025-26 kicks off at Luton
The first fixture of the new campaign saw Luton face AFC Wimbledon in League One tonight.
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But football's return to TV screens was ruined for some by the new look score graphic.
Sky Sports have ditched the simple abbreviations they used for all EFL matches.
And they have replaced it with a design similar to the one in place for Premier League games.
Club badges are now included with the team's abbreviation below.
A new font is also in use for the words and the time.
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Telegraph
a minute ago
- Telegraph
US Open 2025: When is the draw, how to watch on TV, Raducanu and Alcaraz doubles details
The US Open is fast approaching as players gear up for the hard-court event in Flushing Meadows, New York, later this month. After the Canadian Open concludes this week, the Cincinnati Open follows, which will be the last chance for most players to fine-tune their preparations ahead of a grand slam event, which has some changes this year. Skip to: Draw details How to watch How to buy US Open tickets Prize money When do the US Open finals take place? New to 2025 British players at the US Open Latest odds When does the US Open start? The singles draw will begin on Sunday, August 24. The tournament follows the Australian and French Open in becoming a 15-day competition. It means the men's and women's singles first rounds play out over the opening three days. When is the US Open draw? The singles draw will be announced on Thursday, August 21. How to watch the US Open on TV and streaming in the UK Sky Sports has the broadcasting rights to show the US Open live from Flushing Meadows. Gigi Salmon is presenting the coverage alongside the likes of Tim Henman, Laura Robson, Martina Navratilova, Marion Bartoli, Karthi Gnanasegaram, Feliciano Lopez, Naomi Cavaday and Jonathan Overend. How to watch the US Open on TV in the US ESPN have the broadcasting rights to show the tournament for the 17th consecutive year. ESPN's networks will showcase first-to-last-ball coverage with 170+ hours on TV via ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. Where is the US Open held? The home of the US Open is the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York. How to buy US Open tickets You can buy tickets here. What is the US Open prize money? The 2025 prize money breakdown is yet to be announced. Last year, the men's and women's singles champions took home £2.8 million and the runners-up earned £1.4 million. At Wimbledon this year, the men's and women's singles champions won £3 million. When do the US Open finals take place? The women's final takes place on Saturday, September 6, and the men's final the following day, Sunday September 7. New for 2025 Mixed Doubles competition Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz have been confirmed as wild card entries in this year's US Open mixed doubles event. The mixed doubles championship will take place before the main tournament on August 19 and 20, where $1m (£750,000) in prize money is at stake for the winners. The event has been revamped, taking place before the main singles draw begins. It will consist of best-of-three-set matches, with short sets of up to four games and no-ad in games that reach a score of deuce (40-all), meaning that the winner of the next point wins the game. If the teams split sets, a 10-point match tie-break will be played instead of a third set. The first team to earn 10 points in the tie-break, with an advantage of two or more points – will win the match. The final will be a best-of-three-set match, with sets maxing out at six games. Raducanu and Alcaraz – who can expect to be given a portmanteau nickname of either 'Alcaranu' or 'Raducaraz' – are one of six teams who have received wild cards so far and two further wild cards are set to be announced at a later date to take the overall number of teams competing to 16. Eight of the total 16 pairs have received direct entry into the draw, including Emma Navarro and Jannik Sinner along with Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud. Britain's Jack Draper is also in the main draw, paired with Paula Badosa and US duo Jessica Pegula and Tommy Paul will play together in front of their home crowd. British players at the US Open Men's singles Qualified automatically Jack Draper Cameron Norrie Jacob Fearnley Qualifying tournament TBC Women's singles Qualified automatically Emma Raducanu Katie Boulter Sonay Kartal Qualifying tournament TBC Who are the defending champions? Jannik Sinner was too strong for Taylor Fritz as he won in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. In the 2024 women's singles final, Aryna Sabalenka kept her nerve to defeat Jessica Pegula 7-5, 7-5.


The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Will Hearts' army of data nerds back up Tony Bloom's title talk?
Despite the Scottish Premiership title race being more predictable than Football Daily at a bottomless brunch, fitba has never been short of drama. Who can forget Ross County deleting their own website, Kirk Broadfoot suffering facial burns after microwaving an egg and former Hearts manager Robbie Neilson trying to give journalists the slip as he left the club's training ground by sending out a decoy (sports scientist John Hill) to the car park in a Robbie Neilson mask. Edinburgh, very much the second city in Scotland when it comes to football, still has one of the game's finest rivalries between two grand old clubs, Hearts and Hibernian. Each have had their moments in recent derbies: last year Hearts' Lawrence Shankland celebrated scoring a penalty by catching and eating a pie thrown by a Hibs supporter. In March, Jack Iredale scored a screamer to win the derby for Hibs. The post-match celebrations at Easter Road featured one of the finest ever renditions of Sunshine on Leith, a song sung with so much feeling that it left some Hibs players in tears. And who can blame them? If you get goosebumps watching that song, imagine what it must be like to come from that corner of Scotland, stand on that terrace and sing those lyrics in front of your victorious team. Magic. The point is, fitba is far greater than just Rangers and Celtic. And this is very much the opinion of Tony Bloom, the owner of Brighton who bought a 29% stake in Hearts this summer for £9.86m. Following the club's opening win over Aberdeen – a 2-0 victory that leaves the Jambos top of the Premiership table – Bloom was in a bullish mood as he faced the media, explaining that he thinks Hearts can challenge for glory. 'If we have not won the league title in the next 10 years, I will be very disappointed,' Bloom stated. 'I want to make sure that we are in the talk to win the title at the start of each season.' We have heard this sort of patter before, a new owner coming in and telling a club's supporters what they want to hear. The difference is, Bloom has a track record of using his army of data nerds and analytics gurus to drastically improve clubs with savvy recruitment. Brighton are now one of the best run clubs in England, while Union Saint-Gilloise, who were bottom of Belgium's second tier when the Englishman took over in 2018, won the Belgian top flight a few months ago for the first time in 90 years and are in Bigger Cup. The last time a club that wasn't called Celtic or Rangers won the Scottish Premiership was 1985 and the last time Hearts won it was 65 years ago, but Bloom seems untroubled. 'I understand there will be a lot of Celtic and Rangers fans, maybe Hibs and Aberdeen fans, who will be laughing and saying 'we've heard it all before',' he blathered. 'I just thought there was an opportunity here to shake things up in Scotland. I think we've got a very good chance of at least being second this season. I've just got a lot more confidence of what Hearts can do compared to when I did my first press conference at Union seven years ago.' Bloom has wasted no time in bringing in a new striker, Cláudio Braga, who (very much in the Brighton ilk) was signed from Norwegian second-division side FK Aalesunds for around £400,000. The Portuguese bagged four goals in five pre-season matches – including one in a 3-0 win over Premier League Sunderland – and already has a chant among the Tynecastle faithful: 'All we need is … Cláudio Braga,' set to the tune of the Queen classic. Sunshine on Leith it is not, but Hearts fans will be getting goosebumps regardless. A couple of friends had come over to see me, we were chatting, and suddenly they said they couldn't understand what I was saying. My speech was slurring. 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Back in 1995, they got their man in Nottingham Forest's Stan Collymore, seen here with manager Roy Evans after a whopping £8.5m transfer. Stan the Man got off to a decent start with a cracking goal against Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day of the 1995-96 season, before forming a deadly partnership with Robbie Fowler, sharing 55 goals. It was a Collymore goal that decided the following April's all-time 4-3 classic with Newcastle but that Liverpool team never achieved its potential. Wearing white suits as losing FA Cup finalists and some tabloid-splashed big nights out led to their Spice Boys tag. Meanwhile, Collymore's form began drifting. The rapid rise of Michael Owen meant he was sold to Aston Villa, his boyhood idols, for £7m, Liverpool never quite enjoying the best of his huge potential.


BreakingNews.ie
31 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
I don't think about it – Liverpool's Florian Wirtz unfazed by £100m price tag
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