The NFL's meeting with Britney Taylor regarding sexual assault allegations against New England Patriots wide receiver Antonio Brown is set for Monday, a source confirmed with ESPN.

Taylor, Brown's former trainer, filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday in which she accused him of sexually assaulting her on three occasions in 2017 and 2018.

ESPN had previously reported that the NFL and Taylor were expected to meet in the upcoming week. NFL Network first reported Sunday that the meeting would take place on Monday.

A source told ESPN's Josina Anderson that Taylor has given information to the league in advance of the meeting. The source said they were not told that Brown or any of his representatives would be at that meeting and are not expecting them to be.

Brown traveled with the Patriots to Miami ahead of Sunday's game against the Dolphins, a source told ESPN's Mike Reiss on Saturday, and could make his season debut. Sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Friday that Brown was not placed on the commissioner's exempt list, as there is no criminal investigation involving the wide receiver.

Brown's lawyer, Darren Heitner, said in a statement Tuesday that his client and Taylor were involved in a "consensual personal relationship."

Three-time world half-marathon champion clocks 58:01 in Copenhagen

Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor stormed to a world half-marathon record in Copenhagen on Sunday, taking 17 seconds off the previous record mark with his impressive time of 58:01.

The 26-year-old won the first of his three world half-marathon titles in the Danish capital and returned there with an aim of improving the 58:18 global mark set by Abraham Kiptum in Valencia last year.

Kamworor was just outside world record pace through 5km, which he passed as part of a large group in 13:53.

But he picked up the pace and clocked 27:34 for 10km.

Soon after, he was running solo and went on to pass the 15km mark in 41:05, a time which was 11 seconds inside sub-58 minute pace and the quickest ever recorded for that distance.

There was another world best at 20km, which he passed in 55:00 before crossing the finish line just a second over 58 minutes.

“Finally I could go for a fast time, and what a time it is!” said Kamworor.

A total of six athletes finished inside the hour, with Kamworor followed by his compatriot Bernard Kipkorir in 59:16 and Ethiopia’s Berehanu Wendemu Tsegu in 59:22 ahead of Kenyans Edwin Kiprop Kiptoo (59:27), Amos Kurgat (59:37) and Philemon Kiplimo (59:57).

Norway’s Sondre Nordstad Moen was seventh in 60:20 and Britain’s Charlie Hulson 28th in a PB of 65:19.

Kamworor now aims to regain the TCS New York City Marathon title on November 3, which he won in 2017.

The women’s title in Copenhagen was claimed by Tokyo Marathon champion Birhane Dibaba of Ethiopia in an almost two-minute PB of 65:57 as she won by 25 seconds.

Kenya’s Evaline Chirchir was second in 66:22 and Dorcas Tuitoek third in 66:36.

They were all part of the group which passed 5km in 15:48 and 10km in 31:15, before the trio reached 15km in 46:55.

Dibaba moved away to pass 20km in 62:31, ahead of Chirchir’s 62:49 and Tuitoek’s 62:59.

Serme sinks Sobhy to claim home win
By MATT COLES – Squash Mad Correspondent

World No.3, and home favourite, Camille Serme, and New Zealand’s Paul Coll are the Open de France – Nantes 2019 presented by Tailor Capital champions, after they won their respective matches at the Chateau des ducs de Bretagne on Saturday evening.

Serme took the title after she defeated US No.1 Amanda Sobhy in an enthralling four-game final. She went a game down though, despite being 8-4 up in the first. From there, the American fought back to win seven of the next eight points to silence the French crowd.

However, they were not quiet for long, as they soon got behind their compatriot, and it gave Serme the boost she needed. The World No.3 dominated the opening part of the second game, and although Sobhy won a few points towards the end, the Frenchwoman took it 11-6 to level the match.

The third game was much tighter, as both players started to show some fatigue in the sweltering conditions on court in Nantes. However, from 6-6, Serme took four straight points to have game ball. Although Sobhy saved two of them, the World No.3 took the game 11-8 to move into a 2-1 lead.

The American started the fourth game just as she needed to by winning the first three points. However, Serme was able to move into a 10-7 lead. Sobhy saved two match balls, but the Frenchwoman converted the third to become the Open de France – Nantes Champion at the first time of asking.

“I am very happy. It has been a while since I won a title and winning here in front of my family, it is a big thing for me,” Serme said emotionally after the win.

“Even when she won the first, I thought that I made her work physically. We played each other two weeks ago and I came back from 2-0 down and match ball down so I knew that if I made her work physically then I would have a chance.

“I had to keep the rallies as long as possible. The crowd helped, especially in the last few rallies when I was feeling a bit tired. It give you that extra boost, because you want to win for them as well.

“I think for both of us, I could hear her breathing louder than usually. It was tougher for both of us, but you have to deal with it. It is not easy because you sweat a lot and it makes the racquet slippery, which affects your shots, but it does affect both of you.

“I know it is not a Platinum event, but it is still a big tournament. There were some unbelievable players this week. Playing at home in front of my staff, my family, it is a big thing for me!”

Speaking after the match, Sobhy said: “That is the hardest match I have ever had to play, but I think she just had a bit more juice both physically and mentally in the end.”

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In the men’s final, World No.6 Paul Coll got the better of Wales’ Joel Makin in a brutal three-game affair to win the title. The Kiwi ran out the winner in straight games, but it took over 70 minutes in typical ‘Superman’ fashion.

In part, that came down to a mammoth first game, which lasted over 26 minutes. Coll took it on a tie-break to take the momentum into the rest of the match.

The second saw the World No.6 dominate his Welsh counterpart, restricting the ‘Golden Tiger’ to just three points, as he doubled his lead in the match. He then went out into a big lead in the fourth, holding a 9-4 advantage.

However, the Welsh No.1 was able to fight back, wining five straight points to tie level in the game at 9-9. It would be Coll that went on to win the game, and the match, though, to lift his second title of the calendar year.

“I was very happy with my performance, it was probably my best squash all week which is what you want to do. It was almost like a new event this evening because I only got four or five hours sleep, so mentally I had to be on it today.” Coll explained.

“Joel played really well today but I am happy with my performance and you cannot get better than starting the season with a victory at the first chance.

“I led most of the first game so if I let that slip it would have been a real momentum killer for me. I probably should have closed it out a bit easier, but he came back very strong. I think it was key for me, especially because I was in front for the majority of it, so it would have been flattening had I lost it.

“He was tired, but I honestly think he played his best squash well. He was aggressive and I was probably a bit passive because I thought I had already won. He played his best from 9-4 down which was a bit annoying. I am very happy to close it out in three because it would have been a very tough push to get going again in a fourth.”

After the final, Makin said: “He played some great squash, he was tight, consistent and error-free. It was a tough 70 minutes for 3-0. He was consistent and solid.”

The next event on the PSA World Tour will be the Oracle Netsuite Open in San Francisco from September 24-30.
PSA Open de France Nantes 2019 presented by Tailor Capital 2019, Chateau des ducs de Bretagne, Nantes, France.

Men’s Final:
[2] Paul Coll (NZL) bt [3] Joel Makin (WAL) 12-10, 11-3, 11-9 (72m)
Women’s Final:
[1] Camille Serme (FRA) bt [3] Amanda Sobhy (USA) 9-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-9 (59m)

Report by MATT COLES (PSA). Edited by ALAN THATCHER.

Pictures courtesy of PSA

Wales boss Warren Gatland admits he is worried about his lock options with Adam Beard and Cory Hill out of their World Cup opener against Georgia - but hopes both will be fit for Australia.

Beard has had his appendix removed, while Hill has not played since February because of an ankle injury and a stress fracture in his leg.

Wales face Georgia on 23 September and play Australia six days later.

"There is a concern at the moment with the second rows," said Gatland.

"He [Beard] is probably not going to be available for selection for the Georgia game, but the medics are confident he'll be available for the Australia game.

"[Hill] is the same. They're confident that he'll be available for selection against Australia.

"He's been out of his boot and on the training field today [Sunday], even though he wasn't doing any running. Hopefully, after that Georgia game, he'll be back training and available for selection."

Ospreys lock Beard was taken to hospital in Wales before the squad's departure on Wednesday.

The Welsh Rugby Union said the 23-year-old "had his appendix removed uneventfully" and will link up with the squad in Japan on Thursday.

Hill, meanwhile, continues his recovery from a stress fracture of his leg, having previously injured his ankle while scoring a try in the Six Nations win over England in February.

Without Hill and Beard, Wales' only available specialist second rows against Georgia will be captain Alun Wyn Jones and Jake Ball, with back-rower Aaron Shingler likely to provide lock cover on the bench.

Fly-half Rhys Patchell is also a doubt after he was forced off by a head injury during Wales' World Cup warm-up loss to Ireland in Dublin.

"He's gone through the HIA [head injury assessment] protocols," Gatland said of the Scarlets player.

"He was training this morning, just doing some non-contact stuff at this stage.

"We'll ease him back into contact work later in the week, making sure that we go through the protocols and ensure he's 100% and available for selection."

'Fantastic' welcome in Japan

After spending a couple of nights in Tokyo, Wales travelled to Kitakyushu on Saturday for a training camp.

The squad were given a rapturous welcome as they arrived at Kitakyushu Airport, while Welsh flags and messages of support have been plastered all over buildings and cars across the city.

"It's absolutely fantastic. They've embraced Wales, the team and the culture, even putting the red dragon on their fire engines," said Gatland.

"In fairness to the Welsh Rugby Union, particularly Ryan Jones and his team, they've been over here on a number of occasions, running coaching sessions to form a relationship with the local community.

"We heard last night that there has been a significant uptake in the number of youngsters playing rugby in Kitakyushu and the surrounding districts.

"We see that as being incredibly positive. For the players to see all the flags and posters around town has been quite humbling.

"It's brilliant that they city has got behind us.

"There are so many similarities between Kitakyushu and Wales in terms of the history of the mining industry and the ports.

"There is definitely a relationship there and hopefully we can continue to build on that."

LAS VEGAS – Tyler Reddick couldn’t win Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on speed, so he did it on fuel mileage instead.

Reddick ran the final 70 laps of the race on one tank of fuel, allowing him to outlast Christopher Bell in a nail-biting finish to the Rhino Pro Truck Outfitters 300 for his fifth victory of the season to wrap up the regular season for the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Bell had the field in the palm of his hand throughout most of the race, forcing Reddick and his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing team to gamble on strategy. When the caution flag waved on lap 128 for a crash in turn four involving C.J. McLaughlin, they got their chance.

Reddick and a handful of other drivers hit pit road for fuel and tires on lap 130 while Bell and most of the leaders opted not to pit. Reddick and his team had aspirations to run the final 70 laps of the race without stopping again while Bell would be forced to make at least one more stop.

Racing resumed on lap 134 and Bell shot out away from the field. Behind him Reddick was taking his time and watching his lap times, trying to save as much fuel as possible for the stretch run.

The final round of pit stops began with 33 laps left and Bell made his final pit stop with 31 laps to go. As expected Reddick opted not to pit, remaining on the track as Bell and rest of the leaders hit the pits. Bell emerged from the pits nearly 20 seconds behind Reddick, but quickly began to cut into that lead.

By lap 181 Bell was back up to second, but he was still at least half the track behind Reddick. Bell continued to click off fast laps while Reddick continued to manage his pace, at times losing a second a lap to the fast closing Bell.

With four laps left Bell got to within three seconds of Reddick and continued to close the gap. Knowing Bell was coming in a hurry, Reddick changed his line and began running against the wall at the top of the track in an effort to find some speed and hold off Bell.

The gamble ended up paying off for Reddick as he got to the finish line first, .738 seconds ahead of Bell.

“That was nerve wracking to say the least. The last three laps I started losing fuel pressure and it was stumbling,” Reddick said. “I didn’t think I was going to make it running the fence. Christopher Bell had a really unreal fast race car today, but we were just able to come get fuel and tires and just save a lot. That allowed us to run really, really fast laps there for what we had on tires at the end to keep us in front of him.”

The victory served as an added bonus for Reddick, who clinched the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season championship by the time the second stage was over. Once that was in the bag, Reddick said it was time for him to go figure out how to win the race.

“What I wanted to do was get that locked up in our Tame the Beast Chevrolet and make sure that we had that taken care of first before we tried to go win this race,” Reddick said. “Not going to lie to you, I didn’t think it was going to go that way. I didn’t think we were going to win it that way.”

Bell was left dejected after the race, lamenting that it was the second time this season that he had the field covered yet failed to win the race.

“This is the second time this year we got beat by circumstances,” Bell said. “At Iowa we put on our tires when we needed to and some guys gambled on a yellow coming out later and they beat us. Today they just kind of did the opposite of us and it won them the race.

“Very disappointing, but obviously very happy with how our Rheem Supra was. It was really fast, so that’s a good sign.”

Despite finishing second, Bell still leaves Las Vegas as the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship leader after the points reset for the first round of the playoffs. He’ll start the playoffs with 2,055 points, 11 points more than Reddick and Cole Custer, who are tied for second.

Other drivers who will race for the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship include Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe, Justin Allgaier, Michael Annett, Noah Gragson, Brandon Jones, Justin Haley, Ryan Sieg and John Hunter Nemechek.

For complete results, advance to the next page.

MONTEREY, Calif. – Winward Racing is now a winning team in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge.

The elusive victory had escaped the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT4 team for three years, first joining the series in 2017 and the following year, announcing a partnership with the German Mercedes-AMG squad of HTP Motorsport that stands to this day.

Russell Ward – who has been with the program since its inception alongside team owner and father Bryce – was part of the winning lineup on Saturday afternoon at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. He stood with the team and cheered on as co-driver Dominik Baumann crossed the finish line first.

“It means an incredible amount to the team,” said Ward. “Everyone works so hard, and we bleed this together. To finally bring it home for the team feels incredible, especially after the season we’ve had. It’s just been a difficult season. We’ve had some crashes, some mechanical failures, just about everything in the book has been thrown at us.”

For the majority of the race, Winward’s toughest opponent appeared to be the No. 39 Carbahn with Peregrine Racing Audi R8 GT4 of Tyler McQuarrie and Jeff Westphal. McQuarrie qualified the car on pole and handed the car over to Westphal in that position.

Westphal brought the car into the pits before Baumann for his final stop. However, Baumann was able to make up enough ground on track before he entered the pits for a rear-tire change that allowed him to come out ahead in the end.

From there, he hunted down the handful of race cars looking to stretch their fuel tanks to the finish. He ultimately passed the No. 7 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport of Trent Hindman for the lead with eight minutes remaining in the two-hour race.

“We gained so much time on track, we were leading from after the pit stop,” said Baumann, who got the call to compete this weekend in his first Pilot Challenge race just a week ago. “The car was just great. I could defend the Audi at the end and pull a gap. It looked easy, but it wasn’t.

“We were setting up the car for race pace, not for one lap, and it helped us to have a good car in the race. Especially the last 15 to 20 minutes, we were strong. We made the right decisions, and it paid off in the end.”

McQuarrie and Westphal expanded their championship lead with a runner-up finish, nearly clinching the title with a 34-point lead, 262-228 over the No. 69 Motorsports In Action McLaren GT4 of Jesse Lazare and Corey Fergus with one race remaining.

Hindman and co-driver Alan Brynjolfsson held on for a third-place finish, moving up one spot to third in the championship standings with 218 points.

In TCR, Gavin Ernstone and Jon Morley put the No. 61 Roadshagger Audi RS3 LMS in victory lane.

One year ago the duo contested their second career race in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge. Returning this weekend to Monterey, Calif., they carried with them a string of four podium finishes in six races and a painstakingly near-win in its first full season. That victory finally came Saturday afternoon in an impressive 12th-to-first performance without a pit stop in the final 50 minutes of the two-hour race.

“The team did an incredible job, as they have the last five races, jumping us up during the pit stop,” said Morley, a San Francisco resident. “They got me out in third place, and then I managed to get to the lead pretty quick, pull out a bit of a gap, and then from there, it was just managing tires. We weren’t planning on running the whole way, but the way the race went, that’s what happened.”

The win ends a trying few weeks for Roadshagger, which was involved in a late-race incident from the lead at Virginia Int’l Raceway three weeks ago that wiped out a potential victory. The following Monday, Ernstone and Morley learned their partnering team, eEuroparts, was immediately withdrawing from the sport.

“As luck would have it, I own all the stuff that is in our team,” said Ernstone. “I own the car, the hauler, all the tools and everything else, and eEuroparts was running it for me. We just got a driver and a tractor unit straight over to Connecticut, got everything in there and brought it to (my shop in) Vegas.

“That car was finished three minutes into the beginning of the promoter test on Thursday. We thought we were going to be working on it and adjusting it through the promoter test, but it was perfect the whole test. That gave us the ability to work on strategy and everything else for this weekend. It’s been great. It couldn’t be better.”

With the victory, Ernstone and Morley moved into third place in the Pilot Challenge TCR standings, 14 points behind the leading No. 98 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Veloster N TCR pair of Michael Lewis and Mark Wilkins, 256-242.

Lewis and Wilkins finished second on Saturday by a narrow .276 seconds after starting from the pole position. They hold an 11-point margin over their next closest competitors in the title hunt, Tom O’Gorman and Shelby Blackstock of the No. 37 L.A. Honda World Racing Honda Civic TCR, who finished third Saturday.