Toronto tennis fans were served up disappointment after the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and other top players dropped out of the National Bank Open this year — a trend experts say could repeat if the tournament structure doesn’t change. The National Bank Open (NBO) expanded from one week to 12-days of competition, with the men facing off in Toronto and the women in Montreal from July 26 to Aug. 7.  This year the tournament comes two weeks after Wimbledon and is immediately followed by the Cincinnati Open and the U.S. Open a week after that.  The change limits the…

Bright lights. Big opponents. Canadian fans chanting her name. Rebecca Marino remembers every detail of her run at the 2021 National Bank Open. “Having that first match with [American Madison] Keys on centre court, a night match, and I just remember the crowd being so encouraging and really pushing me to win that match,” she said of the first-round victory. “It was just kind of like this electric feeling. I was like, ‘Oh, I want more of that.’ “Those are the things you remember, more like the emotion and that sort of thing, not necessarily the points or like something specific…

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports’ daily email newsletter. Subscribe here. Summer McIntosh has an extremely ambitious goal for the upcoming swimming world championships in Singapore. After winning a Canadian-record three gold medals in four individual events at the Paris Olympics last summer, the 18-year-old phenom now wants to become only the second swimmer in history to win five solo titles at a single long-course world championships. The first was Michael Phelps, who did it in 2007 en route to his iconic eight-gold-medal performance at the Beijing Olympics the following year, which included five individual victories…

Venus Williams’ return to professional tennis will not just be a one-tournament visit: She was awarded a wild-card entry on Wednesday for next month’s Cincinnati Open. The 45-year-old Williams is participating in her first event in more than a year this week at the DC Open and won first-round matches in both singles and doubles. Her 6-3, 6-4 victory over 23-year-old Peyton Stearns on Tuesday night made Williams the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match. Martina Navratilova was 47 when she picked up her last singles victory in 2004. Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles —…

WARNING: This article includes graphic details of alleged sexual assault and may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone impacted by it. Regardless of the outcome of the sexual assault trial for five former world junior hockey players, the issues it’s raised — about hockey culture, consent and how the legal system handles such complaints — will be debated long after the judge hands down her decisions Thursday in London, Ont., suggest legal experts and advocates. It’s expected Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia will give lengthy reasons for her rulings after the eight-week trial that wrapped in mid-June. Carter Hart, Alex Formenton,…

WARNING: This article gives graphic details of alleged sexual assault and may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone impacted by it. Regardless of the outcome of the sexual assault trial for five former world junior hockey players, the issues it’s raised — about hockey culture, consent and how the legal system handles such complaints — will be debated long after the judge hands down her decisions Thursday in London, Ont., suggest legal experts and advocates. It’s expected Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia will give lengthy reasons for her rulings after the eight-week trial that wrapped in mid-June. Carter Hart, Alex…

The Boston Fleet have hired Kris Sparre as the second head coach in the Professional Women’s Hockey League franchise’s history. Sparre, a 38-year-old veteran assistant with no experience in the women’s game, replaces Courtney Kessel, who had a 27-19-8 record and a Walter Cup Finals appearance before leaving to take over at Princeton. Her departure leaves only two female head coaches among the PWHL’s eight teams. “This is a league that has tremendous momentum right now. And to be able to work in a city like Boston, that has such a rich tradition in winning, and building successful teams, is something…

Kerrin Hands calls walking soccer “the biggest sport no one’s heard of.” Hands, who runs the Toronto Walking Soccer Club, was initially skeptical about the appeal of a no-running version of the world’s most popular game. But it didn’t take long for the game to win him over. “The game is pretty engaging. When I first heard of it and I went to play for the first time, I had my doubts, walking through it didn’t sound that exciting,” Hands said. “But within 10 minutes, I totally understood it. “You have to be able to pass well, you have to…

Montreal’s Gabriel Diallo advanced to the third round of the Citi Open hard-court tennis tournament with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan on Tuesday in Washington. Diallo, who had a first-round bye as the 15th seed in Washington, had 10 aces and broke Marozsan twice on seven chances. Marozsan, who committed six double faults, failed to convert the only chance he had to break Diallo’s serve. Diallo improved to 2-0 against Marozsan, with his other win coming earlier this year in a Davis Cup qualifier. Diallo will play on Thursday against the fourth-seeded Ben Shelton, who beat wild…

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. The new policy, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year. The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and references Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,”…