Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters 2025 LIVE RESULTS: 14-year-old Szubarczyk in action, Brecel WITHDRAWS, O'Sullivan waits
Judd Trump edged past Mark Williams 10-9 to win a nail-biting 2024 final.
But the sensational World No 1 will have to wait to kickstart his title defence as his ranking gains him automatic qualification to the next round.
And Ronnie O'Sullivan is in the same boat too, with the snooker legend getting his campaign underway on Tuesday.
On Saturday, former world champion Luca Brecel withdrew from the event for medical reasons.
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Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Dillian Whyte FUMES and calls out presenter in x-rated rant after announcer got his nickname terribly WRONG in build-up to Moses Itauma clash
Dillian Whyte was left bristling and bemused after an announcer messed up his boxing nickname - and accidentally described him as an infant abductor. The heavyweight typically goes by the moniker of 'body snatcher' - a reference to his aggressive style of targeting the torso. But at the Grand Arrivals in Riyadh, ahead of his Saturday showdown with Moses Itauma, Whyte suffered the embarrassment of being called the 'baby snatcher'. It's safe to say his new tag didn't go down well, with Whyte later confronting announcer Thomas Schreiber about his mishap, though their encounter was good-natured. 'Who was the announcer? I think it was Thomas Schreiber. Where is he? It's fight week. They're playing games,' he told Secondsout, scanning the room for the announcer before calling him over. 'It's a Queensberry show. They're going to f*** with me. It ain't nothing new. It's crazy that he said that. Thomas Scheiber, I respect him as a professional, but clearly, he's unprofessional. Thomas, come here and speak to me. That's wild. I'll rush him - joking! What was with that, man?' Schreiber came over and was instantly in backtracking mode: 'I apologise. It was a mistake. I wrote it down and the wrong word came out. It was an honest mistake. 'For the rest of the week, it'll be "The Body Snatcher." Unfortunately, I only get one chance at it, and sometimes...' Whyte cheekily quipped: '[Maybe] the booty snatcher, but the baby snatcher is wild, bro.' After letting his dissatisfaction be known, he was gracious towards Schreiber before conducting the rest of his interview. The veteran, 37, is hoping to pull off an upset against his 20-year-old opponent in Riyadh on Saturday night. Whyte, a two-time former WBC interim heavyweight champion, has a record of 31-3 and has won his last three fights. He is bidding to be the first man to stop Itauma, who has had a relentless start to his professional career in the ring with a logbook reading 12-0.
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Premier League 2025-26 preview No 15: Newcastle United
Guardian writers' predicted position: 7th (NB: this is not necessarily Louise Taylor's prediction but the average of our writers' tips) Last season's position: 5th A Champions League campaign beckons and there is the Carabao Cup to defend but the removal of Alexander Isak's image from the windows of Newcastle's club store at St James' Park is emblematic of a troubled Tyneside summer. As if the Sweden striker's decision to skip the club's tour of Singapore and South Korea while trying to force a move to Liverpool was not bad enough, a succession of transfer targets have turned Newcastle down. Hugo Ekitiké, Bryan Mbeumo, João Pedro, James Trafford and Benjamin Sesko opted to move to Liverpool, London or Manchester as the majority Saudi Arabian-owned club operated without a sporting director and chief executive. The good news is that Eddie Howe is an excellent coach and possesses plenty of high-calibre players, Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimarães, Anthony Elanga, Joelinton and Anthony Gordon foremost among them. Throw in the arrivals of Anthony Elanga, Aaron Ramsdale and, almost certainly, Malick Thiaw and last season's starting XI has been fortified in goal, central defence and on the right wing. The need for a couple of strikers and, above all, a resolution to Isak's flirtation with Liverpool remains pressing. Howe's admission that he 'wants players that really want to play for this football club' suggests the manager has had enough of Isak but much depends on the expected impending financial haggling between Newcastle's owners and the Anfield board. Meanwhile Newcastle have failed to win a pre-season fixture. 'It's been a challenging summer,' Howe reflected. 'But any season can go one of two ways. Things are never as good or as bad as you think. At the moment I'm very neutral. I believe that from tough moments you can build something even more special than you had before.' Any concerns that Howe could flounder away from his south-coast comfort zone have been well and truly banished during the near four years the former Bournemouth manager has spent on Tyneside. The workaholic 47-year-old is an outstanding coach who, in the course of leading Newcastle into the Champions League for the second time in three seasons and choreographing the Carabao Cup triumph, has improved a series of players beyond measure. Joelinton's startling metamorphosis from struggling centre-forward to gamechanging midfielder is testament to Howe's talents. Although an excellent, highly articulate communicator, Newcastle's piano-playing manager does not dispense trust easily and, publicly at least, is a master of circumspection. Despite the gargantuan wealth of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Newcastle's relatively skinny commercial revenue streams dictate their spending is restricted by Premier League profitability and sustainability rules. Fans, and some players, are frustrated by the Saudis' failure to deliver a new training ground, and a decision as to whether to revamp St James' Park or build a new stadium keeps being postponed. It does not help that the club have spent the past 11 months seeking a new chief executive after the outgoing Darren Eales's blood cancer diagnosis and have been without a sporting director this summer in the wake of Paul Mitchell's abrupt exit in June, after less than a year in the job. Since the ousting of the former minority owner Amanda Staveley and her husband, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, last summer the lack of an Arabist and/or an executive conversant with Saudi business culture in Newcastle's UK hierarchy has created an apparent disconnect. The £55m signing of Elanga from Nottingham Forest ends Howe's long-running quest for a new right winger. 'I want to showcase my talent,' says the rapid-dribbling 23-year-old Sweden international. 'I'm pacey and direct. I can play on either side, I can play as a striker. I can use both feet. I've got lots of weapons. I know the gaffer and staff here can take my game to another level. What we want to achieve, how we want to play, it's perfect. What we're building here is unique and special. As soon as I knew about Newcastle's interest it was a no brainer.' Howe has long been impressed by a player whose solitary work on his left foot during lockdown has left Elanga two-footed. 'I've got a saying where I'm precise, not rushed,' says the former Manchester United winger. 'It's a French saying, precis pas précipité, something I go by a lot. In my life, I've never rushed anything.' Lewis Miley is 19 but looks very much the complete midfielder and holds two England Under-21 caps. After breaking into Newcastle's first team during the 2023-24 campaign, a 6ft 2in player with an eye for goal, equally at home in a defensive or attacking midfield role, was restricted to 14 appearances last season. If a back injury was partly responsible, the best youngster to emerge from Newcastle's academy for a very long time faced stiff completion from Tonali, Guimarães and Joelinton for a starting spot in Howe's midfield trinity. The demands of a Champions League campaign should create more opportunities this term when Miley can show he is capable of providing real competition for Guimarães and co. At 27 Aaron Ramsdale has suffered three relegations from the Premier League (with Bournemouth, Sheffield United and Southampton), been bought by Arsenal for £30m and won five England caps. He joins on loan from Southampton and will compete with Nick Pope for a starting place. Howe, Ramsdale's old Bournemouth manager, admires his footwork and regards his former protege as the sort of goalkeeper needed to advance Newcastle's stylistic evolution. But is Ramsdale really a better all-round keeper than Pope? Can he recapture the form that once made him Arsenal's first choice? And can he assuage Newcastle's disappointment at seeing Manchester City hijack their move for Trafford, the gifted former Burnley goalkeeper?
The Sun
8 hours ago
- The Sun
‘It's a silly thing' – Moses Itauma reveals bizarre reason he has no drawers in training camp house ahead of Whyte fight
MOSES ITAUMA is a win away from being part of the heavyweight world title furniture — just do not put a chest of drawers in front of him! The Kent fighter, 20, faces Dillian Whyte on Saturday night in Saudi Arabia and victory over the world title challenger would catapult him on to boxing's top shelf. 4 Wardrobe-of-a-man Whyte, 37, hit his peak when Itauma was ten years old, has a son older than his baby-faced rival and will throw the kitchen sink at him. But the Body Snatcher' s best chance will be putting in a shift as a removal man — because the only chink in Itauma's armour seems to be a distrust of drawers. Laughing at mention of a DAZN clip showing all his possessions being kept in sport bags, Itauma said: 'It's not that I don't like drawers! But I've been in that camp house for a long time and like to maximise my space. 'It's a silly thing but I keep smashing my phone on stuff, too, and feel drawers are just a waste of space. 'I also don't really have personal belongings at the camp house — my personal belongings are at home. 'I keep my clothes in the wardrobe, my boxers and socks and underwear in one bag and I have another bag with all my bits and pieces that you would usually keep in a drawer. 'If I keep it all in bags, if I ever want to get up and leave one day, I can just grab the bags and go. 'I don't have a fear or phobia of drawers — I do have them at home. But I just like to maximise and utilise my space. 'I'm a big guy and the bedroom in that camp house is small, so I need all the space I can get.' As well as a minimalist approach to his training camp feng shui, Itauma's garden is similarly sparse. Dillian Whyte's incredible body transformation as Body Snatcher works out for Moses Itauma fight But the 'At Home with the Itaumas'-style show also had the 6ft 3in powerhouse using the Harlow garden to air his clean laundry in private. And he admits that the behind-the-scenes access might have painted him in a slightly strange light. 4 Laughing, he explained: 'We have a garden but don't use it to play football or have barbecues. 'We hang the washing out there on a little drying rack but that's about it. 'Now that I think about it, we don't really look OK in that video. I was trying to show a different side to me!' Itauma might be Britain's most mature 20-year-old and despite being the most naturally-gifted boxer we have seen in decades, he is not a fan of all the trash talk and flashy bragging other fighters seem to enjoy. The only thing that he is trying to add to his arsenal is a new hobby . . . to take his time and attention away from the ring. 4 And asked about weekly games with his brother, he added: 'I am rubbish at bowling at the minute. 'I don't know what's going wrong, I think they changed the lanes down at the alley. 'I am trying to get new hobbies but it's hard to find things that excite me.'
