Real Madrid have issued a statement denying claims Thibaut Courtois was substituted at half time of the Champions League group stage clash with Club Brugge due to anxiety.

With Madrid 2-0 down at home to the Belgian side, Zinedine Zidane replaced Courtois with Alphonse Areola at the break and Los Blancos recovered to draw 2-2.

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Despite reports circulating after the match that the ex-Chelsea goalkeeper had been suffering from anxiety, sources had told ESPN FC that this was not the case -- and Madrid have now confirmed this in an official statement.

It read: "In relation to various reports regarding our player Thibaut Courtois, Real Madrid would like to clarify the following:

"At no point was our player diagnosed with anxiety and, therefore, the reports are completely false.

"That Thibaut Courtois in fact was diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis with dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance, which made it impossible for him to finish the match on Tuesday against Brugge.

"The player is responding positively to treatment."

Sources close to the player have told ESPN FC that, at half time against Brugge, Courtois felt unwell, after suffering from dizziness and gastroenteritis since lunch time. The player had lost 5.5lbs on Thursday and returned to the gym for 20 minutes while he continued undergoing treatment.

Courtois will not be available to play against Granada on Saturday, nor will he be on the bench, sources close to the Belgium international added ESPN FC.

Madrid welcome Granada to the Bernabeu in a match which pits first place against second in La Liga.

Information from ESPN FC's Madrid correspondent Rodrigo Faez was used in this report

Iranian women have snapped up tickets for Thursday's World Cup qualifier against Cambodia in Tehran after they were released for sale online.

Iranian authorities had assured world governing body FIFA that women would be allowed to attend the game and have set aside sections of the stadium for women.

The semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA said the 3,500 tickets set aside for women sold out within minutes of going on sale on Friday morning.

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FIFA told Reuters they expect a total of 4,600 tickets for women will be made available in the women only sections.

A spokesman for the organisation said that FIFA would be sending a delegation to the match at Tehran's 78,000 Azadi Stadium to monitor the access for women.

An activist with the group 'Open Stadiums', which campaigns for Iranian women to be able to freely attend matches, said the tickets went on sale without any announcement from the Iranian Football Federation and news of their availability only reached women via social media.

"It was quite a chaotic situation," she told Reuters.

The group welcomed the sale but said they were concerned that women only sections stopped mothers taking their sons to the match with them and said it was also unclear how women with disabilities would be accommodated in the venue.

At Iran's friendly against Syria in June, women were locked out of the Azadi Stadium and detained by security forces.

A female Iranian fan died last month, after setting herself on fire to protest against her arrest for attending a match.

While foreign women have been allowed limited access to matches, Iranian women have been banned from stadiums when men's teams have been playing since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

FIFA has said they want Iranian authorities to allow women access not only to World Cup qualifiers but to all games in the country.

England Under-19s have selected a 16-man squad featuring plenty of county experience for their 50-over tri-series in the Caribbean in December. The tour will help determine selection ahead of the upcoming 2020 U19 World Cup.

Gloucestershire allrounder Ben Charlesworth, Worcestershire batsman Jack Haynes and offpsinner Hamidullah Qadri, recently signed from Derbyshire by Kent, are included, along with 17-year-old allrounder Joey Evison, who made his Nottinghamshire debut in the final round of the Championship.

Many of the players were involved in the summer's tri-series against India Under-19s and Bangladesh Under-19s, with the additions of Scott Currie, Sam Young and wicketkeeper Harry Duke. Lancashire's George Balderson will continue as captain.

The squad will play six games against West Indies Under-19s and Sri Lanka Under-19s in Antigua, starting on December 6, with two teams qualifying for the final on December 21. England's Under-19s head coach, Jon Lewis, will be assisted by Warwickshire batsman Ian Bell, as batting coach, and Middlesex's Nic Pothas, who will oversee wicketkeeping and fielding.

"With the World Cup on the horizon, this is our last opportunity to assess our squad and decide which 15 players to take with us to South Africa," Lewis said. "We've also taken this opportunity to look at some players who are relatively untested at this level and have the chance to force their way into our World Cup squad.

"Nearly half the squad managed to secure county first team appearances this summer. Ben Charlesworth, Jack Haynes, Jordan Cox, Dan Mousley, Hamidullah Qadri, Joey Evison and Tom Clark all had fantastic development experiences at the next level.

"These experiences are a major step forward on their journey and will help them understand the levels they need to achieve to be successful professional cricketers.

"West Indies and Sri Lanka are both countries with fantastic cricketing pedigrees and cultures, so we're sure to experience strong and diverse challenges ahead of our main objective after Christmas."

The 2020 U19s World Cup will take place in South Africa during January and February, with England aiming to improve on their seventh-place finish in New Zealand two years ago.

England Under-19s squad: George Balderson (Lancashire, capt), Kasey Aldridge (Somerset), Ben Charlesworth (Gloucestershire), Tom Clark (Sussex), Jordan Cox (Kent), Blake Cullen (Middlesex), Scott Currie (Hampshire), Harry Duke (Yorkshire), Joey Evison (Nottinghamshire), Lewis Goldsworthy (Somerset), Jack Haynes (Worcestershire), George Hill (Yorkshire), Luke Hollman (Middlesex), Dan Mousley (Warwickshire), Hamidullah Qadri (Kent), Sam Young (Somerset)

Despite declaring himself ready, quarterback Sam Darnold will not return for the New York Jets this week, coach Adam Gase said Friday.

Luke Falk will start for the second straight game when the Jets face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

Darnold has not played since Week 1 after being diagnosed with mononucleosis on Sept. 12.

He was not cleared to play after undergoing testing Thursday night, Gase said. Darnold was set to have an ultrasound and a blood test to determine if his spleen, previously enlarged, has returned to its normal size.

An enlarged spleen -- a common symptom of mono -- could rupture with a blow to the midsection. Darnold has been practicing with a custom-made, hard-plastic brace that protects his rib-cage area and he's planning to wear the brace when he plays.

Darnold had said he felt good enough to play but wouldn't risk his long-term health.

"It's a tough thing because you want to stay safe," Darnold said Thursday. "I want to make sure that I'm safe out there and I'm not going to die."

The Jets (0-3), coming off their bye week, are desperate for a spark. The offense has generated only one touchdown, having gone 29 straight possessions without reaching the end zone. They have started three different quarterbacks -- Darnold, Trevor Siemian and Falk. Siemian suffered a season-ending ankle injury in his first game.

ESPN's Rich Cimini contributed to this report.

You've probably heard by now that Auburn and Florida, who meet in Gainesville on Saturday, have played each other only once in the past 11 seasons. This is a long-standing rivalry, and this will be the eighth time the programs meet as top-10 teams, but they barely play anymore.

Georgia won't play Texas A&M for the first time as a conference rival until later this season. LSU won't visit Missouri for the first time until 2023, 11 years after A&M and Mizzou joined the SEC.

This barely qualifies as a conference.

Florida head coach Dan Mullen said as much last week, noting that Florida has more games scheduled against USF than Mississippi State. "I think it's an injustice for the kids. We should mix those games up, and you should play more teams from the West and get the opportunity to play more SEC games." When you have 14 SEC teams playing eight-game conference schedules, and when seven of those eight spots are occupied by the same seven teams every year (six division foes, plus one permanent inter-division rival), you're barely going to play the other six teams.

Going from eight conference games to nine would put an extra inter-division foe into the rotation and assure you're playing everybody twice in six years. However, the SEC probably isn't going to move to nine-game schedules anytime soon -- the current structure works out pretty well for the league, which has placed at least one team (and on two occasions, two teams) in the national title game in the past 13 seasons.

Luckily, there's an even better way. It doesn't even require adding a conference game, and it would serve the additional purpose of solving occasional problems with unequal divisions.

Just ban divisions altogether.

I've written about this before, but it has picked up steam in the run-up to Auburn-Florida. Let's walk through the basics of what we'll call the conference pod structure.

1. Instead of divisions, each team has a set of three permanent rivals. We have taken to calling them pods. Having three for each team satisfies most rivalry needs, as you'll see below.

2. You play your three permanent rivals every year, and you rotate between the other 10. Home-and-homes against five of them for two years, then home-and-homes against the other five the next two years. Within a student's four years on campus, you have played everyone in the league at least twice. Now that's a conference.

This same structure, by the way, would work beautifully for the ACC, which also plays eight-game conference schedules, doesn't even use geography for its divisions and features even more divisional imbalance than the SEC. And while the three-five structure works with perfect symmetry, it would work for conferences with nine-game conference schedules, too. (Hello, Big Ten.)

A simulation

To see how this would work in the future, I looked to the past. I simulated how it might have played out had the SEC adopted this structure from the moment it became a 14-team league in 2012.

Here are the permanent rivalries I chose:

Hypothetical SEC rivalry pods
Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Mississippi State, Missouri, Vanderbilt
LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Mississippi State: Auburn, Kentucky, Ole Miss
Missouri: Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt
Tennessee: Alabama, Florida, Vanderbilt
Texas A&M: Arkansas, LSU, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee

For balanced scheduling, I referenced teams' five-year average SP+ ratings (2007-11, which can be found at Football Outsiders). I used as many real-life games as possible, and for the new matchups that didn't actually happen, I kept things simple and determined the winner by who would be favored by that year's SP+ ratings. (No, this wasn't intended to be perfectly scientific.)

Here are the results.

2012 Standings
Alabama (7-1, 11-1)
Georgia (7-1, 11-1)
Florida (6-2, 10-2) (-1 win from real life)
LSU (6-2, 10-2)
Texas A&M (6-2, 10-2)
South Carolina (5-3, 9-3) (-1 win)
Vanderbilt (5-3, 8-4)
Ole Miss (3-5, 6-6)
Mississippi State (3-5, 7-5) (-1 win)
Arkansas (3-5, 5-7) (+1 win)
Auburn (2-6, 5-7) (+2 wins)
Tennessee (2-6, 6-6) (+1 win)
Missouri (1-7, 4-8) (-1 win)
Kentucky (0-8, 2-10)

SEC championship game: Alabama vs. Georgia

The title game doesn't change, but we see some shifts further down in the standings. From the start of the league's 14-team existence, the West has been far stronger than the East, and we see here that West teams pick up a net two wins.

2013 Standings
Alabama (7-1, 11-1)
Auburn (6-2, 10-2) (-1 win)
Mississippi State (6-2, 9-3) (+3 wins!)
Missouri (6-2, 10-2) (-1 win)
Georgia (6-2, 9-3) (+1 win)
LSU (5-3, 9-3)
Texas A&M (5-3, 9-3) (+1 win)
South Carolina (5-3, 9-3) (-1 win)
Ole Miss (4-4, 8-4) (+1 win)
Vanderbilt (3-5, 7-5) (-1 win)
Florida (1-7, 2-10) (-2 wins)
Arkansas (1-7, 4-8) (+1 win)
Tennessee (1-7, 4-8) (-1 win)
Kentucky (0-8, 2-10)

SEC championship game: Alabama vs. Auburn

Here, we encounter what some might consider a drawback of the no-divisions structure: immediate rematches. Auburn finished the 2013 regular season with maybe the most dramatic pair of wins in college football's 150-year history, beating Georgia via Ricardo Louis' miraculous deflected touchdown, then beating Alabama via Chris Davis' 109-yard missed field goal return.

In this reality, the Kick Six merely sets up a rematch the next week. Missouri, which would have otherwise won a tiebreaker due to its road win over Georgia, ends up screwed by the Kick Six, not Alabama, which would have been the odds-on favorite to win the rematch and play in the BCS title game.

2014 Standings
Alabama (7-1, 11-1)
Mississippi State (6-2, 10-2)
Missouri (6-2, 9-3) (-1 win)
LSU (5-3, 9-3) (+1 win)
Georgia (5-3, 8-4) (-1 win)
Texas A&M (4-4, 8-4) (+1 win)
Auburn (4-4, 8-4)
South Carolina (4-4, 7-5) (+1 win)
Ole Miss (4-4, 8-4) (-1 win)
Florida (4-4, 6-5)
Arkansas (3-5, 7-5) (+1 win)
Tennessee (2-6, 5-7) (-1 win)
Kentucky (2-6, 5-7)
Vanderbilt (0-8, 3-9)

SEC championship game: Alabama vs. Mississippi State

Missouri, which won the real-life East in both 2013 and 2014, instead narrowly misses out on the title game twice in a row, this time due to a head-to-head loss to Mississippi State. The Bulldogs, who spent a chunk of the season unbeaten and No. 1 in the country, get a late shot at redemption after faltering late in the year.

2015 Standings
Ole Miss (7-1, 10-2) (+1 win)
Alabama (7-1, 11-1)
Georgia (6-2, 10-2) (+1 win)
LSU (6-2, 9-2) (+1 win)
Arkansas (6-2, 8-4) (+1 win)
Florida (5-3, 8-4) (-2 wins)
Auburn (4-4, 8-4) (+2 wins)
Tennessee (4-4, 7-5) (-1 win)
Texas A&M (4-4, 8-4)
Mississippi State (3-5, 7-5) (-1 win)
Kentucky (2-6, 5-7)
South Carolina (1-7, 3-9)
Vanderbilt (1-7, 3-9) (-1 win)
Missouri (0-8, 4-8) (-1 win)

SEC championship game: Ole Miss vs. Alabama

In this reality, the amazing Hunter Henry Game doesn't cost Ole Miss its first spot in the conference title game. Meanwhile, Georgia and LSU each fare better than in real life, making the Mark Richt and Les Miles firings even more awkward than they already were.

2016 Standings
Alabama (8-0, 12-0)
LSU (6-2, 8-3) (+1 win)
Texas A&M (5-3, 9-3) (+1 win)
Auburn (5-3, 8-4)
Florida (5-3, 8-3) (-1 win)
Tennessee (4-4, 8-4)
Georgia (4-4, 7-5)
Mississippi State (4-4, 6-6) (+1 win)
Arkansas (3-5, 7-5)
Ole Miss (3-5, 6-6) (+1 win)
South Carolina (3-5, 6-6)
Kentucky (2-6, 5-7) (-2 wins)
Vanderbilt (2-6, 5-7) (-1 win)
Missouri (2-6, 4-8)

SEC championship game: Alabama vs. LSU

The West picks up four net wins here, and a Florida team that won the East in real life, instead finishes fifth in the conference. Meanwhile, with fewer games against the worst teams in the conference, the Mark Stoops era is really struggling to get off the ground. He has yet to make a bowl.

2017 Standings
Auburn (7-1, 10-2)
Alabama (7-1, 11-1)
Georgia (7-1, 11-1)
LSU (6-2, 9-3)
Ole Miss (5-3, 8-4) (+2 wins)
Mississippi State (5-3, 9-3) (+1 win)
Missouri (4-4, 7-5)
South Carolina (4-4, 7-5) (-1 win)
Texas A&M (4-4, 7-5)
Arkansas (2-6, 5-7) (+1 win)
Florida (2-6, 3-8) (-1 win)
Kentucky (2-6, 5-7) (-2 wins)
Vanderbilt (1-7, 5-7)
Tennessee (0-8, 4-8)

SEC championship game: Auburn vs. Alabama

Here, in addition to immediate rematches, we encounter another potential problem with pods: awkward tie-breakers. Auburn, Alabama and Georgia all finish 7-1, but Alabama and Georgia didn't play each other. Auburn finishes first with wins over both teams, but the Bama/Georgia tie pretty much has to be broken by who has the higher CFP ranking. (Alabama was fifth at this point in real life, Georgia sixth.)

The way this plays out, though, Georgia probably still makes the CFP at 11-1 in addition to the Auburn-Bama winner.

2018 Standings
Alabama (8-0, 12-0)
Georgia (7-1, 11-1)
Auburn (6-2, 10-2) (+3 wins!)
Kentucky (6-2, 10-2) (+1 win)
Texas A&M (5-3, 8-4)
LSU (5-3, 9-3)
Mississippi State (4-4, 8-4)
Florida (4-4, 8-4) (-1 win)
Missouri (3-5, 7-5) (-1 win)
Ole Miss (2-6, 6-6) (+1 win)
South Carolina (2-6, 5-7) (-2 wins)
Vanderbilt (2-6, 5-7) (-1 win)
Tennessee (1-7, 4-8) (-1 win)
Arkansas (1-7, 3-9) (+1 win)

SEC championship game: Alabama vs. Georgia

The title game matchup doesn't change, but one-loss Georgia (which still loses to LSU) gets a pretty stiff challenge from both an Auburn team dealing with a far lighter conference schedule and a Kentucky team that finally found its rhythm (and, in this example, lost to only Tennessee and LSU).

Over the course of seven seasons, the West teams have benefited as you would expect, gaining a net 26 wins. Auburn and Arkansas each score six extra conference wins, and Ole Miss gains five, while the East's Florida loses eight, Missouri loses five, and Vandy and South Carolina lose four each.

This simulation pretty clearly spells out the pluses and minuses to a pod approach.

Plus: Everybody plays everybody frequently.

Minus: Some games that are awfully important to certain fan bases -- Arkansas-LSU, Tennessee-Georgia, etc. -- are still played frequently but no longer annually.

Plus: The schedules within the conference are far more balanced, to some teams' benefit and others' detriment. (This makes certain annual coaching hot seat conversations play out quite differently, from Derek Dooley reaching a bowl and maybe not getting fired from Tennessee in 2012, to Stoops or Vandy's Derek Mason reaching fewer bowls and perhaps finding trouble more quickly.)

Minus: The tiebreaker process will end up breaking ties among teams that didn't play each other. That's awkward and potentially unsatisfying.

Plus: Conference title games are far more likely to pit the best and second-best teams against each other, not best and fifth-best.

Minus: If you're not a fan of immediate rematches (but want to keep all the key rivalry games, such as the Iron Bowl, on Thanksgiving weekend, when they should be), you might be occasionally unhappy with the title game pairings.

It's important to note, the positives far outweigh the negatives. I'll trade occasionally awkward tiebreakers for a greater sense of rivalry, balance and fairness.

The SEC was the first FBS conference to implement a conference title game. Though doubters were legion at first, it benefited the conference greatly and became commonplace within the sport. The league could choose to make a similarly progressive move right now; among all the other benefits, it would get Auburn to Gainesville quite a bit more often.

Week 6 playlist

Here are 10 games -- at least one from each weekend time slot -- that you should pay attention to if you want to get the absolute most out of the weekend, from both an information and entertainment perspective.

All times Eastern.

Friday
No. 18 UCF at Cincinnati (8 p.m., ESPN)
Dartmouth-Penn should be an outstanding second option during commercial breaks, but it's hard to beat this one for a Friday night affair. Despite a loss to Pitt, UCF is still the AAC East favorite, but Cincy QB Desmond Ridder is playing excellent ball, and after slipping to 62nd in SP+ after getting thumped by Ohio State, the Bearcats are back up to 38th. The winner is your East fav.
SP+ projection: UCF 29, Cincy 22

Early Saturday
No. 14 Iowa at No. 19 Michigan (12 p.m., Fox)
Michigan handled Rutgers like it should have (and got RU's Chris Ash fired in the process), but this is the Wolverines' first chance to really prove something after their debacle against Wisconsin. Iowa probably should have lost to Iowa State but is extremely well-rounded -- top 30 in offense, defense and special teams, per SP+ -- and if Michigan's not a true top-20 caliber team, we'll probably know after this one.
SP+ projection: Michigan 26, Iowa 22

Tulane at Army (12 p.m., CBS Sports)
Tulane hasn't finished in the SP+ top 50 since 1998's undefeated run, but the Green Wave are currently 51st and 3-1 overall. Army, meanwhile, is Army -- relentlessly option-heavy on offense, aggressively efficient on defense, and 57th overall. This could be the most run-heavy game of the week this side of Air Force-Navy, and SP+ projects it as a dead-on tossup. Sounds worth your while.
SP+ projection: Army 27.2, Tulane 27.1

North Dakota State at Illinois State (1 p.m., ESPN+)
After a couple of warmups to start the year, NDSU played at what was then FCS' No. 18 team, Delaware, before returning home to face No. 4 UC Davis. Now, play begins in FCS' most rugged conference, the Missouri Valley. Illinois State is 3-1 and No. 6 in FCS, having lost only to Northern Illinois. ESPN+ will carry this one; can young quarterback Trey Lance and NDSU keep rolling?
SP+ projection: NDSU 32, ISU 25

Saturday afternoon (besides Auburn-Florida)
Baylor at Kansas State (3:30 p.m., ESPN2)
Each week, the Big 12 features at least one game key to the race for the second spot in the conference title game. This week, it features three: TCU-Iowa State, Oklahoma State-Texas Tech and this one. Baylor has the second-best defense in the conference, per SP+, but Kansas State has one of the best pass defenses in the country. The Wildcats need this one.
SP+ projection: Baylor 27, Kansas State 23

Virginia Tech at Miami (3:30 p.m., ESPN)
Auburn-Florida and Baylor-KSU should address most of your viewing needs, but I'll be keeping an eye on this one, too, because Tech is a bit of a disaster at the moment. The 2-2 Hokies barely survived Furman and got crushed by Duke in their past two games, plummeting to 72nd in SP+. Can they keep the bottom from completely falling out against a Miami team that is mostly promising but can't block anybody?
SP+ projection: Miami 31, Virginia Tech 17

Saturday evening
No. 25 Michigan State at No. 4 Ohio State (7:30 p.m., ABC)
The biggest game of the evening. Ohio State has been damn near untouchable so far, not only sprinting to 5-0 but beating three SP+ top-40 teams by an average of 41.3 points. That Indiana team Michigan State barely beat last week? Buckeyes 51, Hoosiers 10. But ... this is exactly the kind of situation in which the Spartans sometimes engineer an out-of-nowhere scare, right?
SP+ projection: Ohio State 33, Michigan State 16

Tulsa at No. 24 SMU (7:30 p.m., ESPNU)
LANDMINE ALERT: SMU is ranked for the first time since 1986 and has looked the part of a true New Year's Six bowl contender. But plenty of teams relax when they have a reason to congratulate themselves, and SMU can't afford to do that against a Tulsa team that beat Wyoming and made both Oklahoma State and Michigan State sweat.
SP+ projection: SMU 34, Tulsa 22

Cal at No. 13 Oregon (8 p.m., Fox)
Cal probably doesn't have the offense to be a serious Pac-12 North contender, but the Golden Bears still have a defense, and they have already proven their spoiler potential by beating Washington twice in two years. In his first game against a lively defense since the frustrating Auburn loss, can Oregon's Justin Herbert prove his draft hype and keep the Ducks unbeaten in conference play?
SP+ projection: Oregon 30, Cal 13

Late Saturday
No. 15 Washington at Stanford (10:30 p.m., ESPN)
Honestly? It would take a pretty dramatic rebound from Stanford for this to actually be a game. Washington should cruise. But the rules are that I pick something from every time slot, and the only other options were Boise State at UNLV and SDSU at Colorado State. I'm just being honest here. You can probably go to bed early this Saturday.
SP+ projection: Washington 38, Stanford 18

World number one Novak Djokovic said he played like a machine in progressing to the Japan Open semi-final.

The Serb, 32, took 50 minutes to beat world number 24 Lucas Pouille 6-1 6-2.

Djokovic is competing at his first tournament since he withdrew from the US Open in September with a shoulder injury.

"I am not a machine. But I did play like one today. This was one of the best matches I played this year," he said.

"I am very, very pleased with the way I feel and played on the court."

Djokovic, will face either David Goffin of Belgium or Chung Hyeon of South Korea in the semi-finals.

Britain's Andy Murray was beaten 6-2 7-6 (7-3) by top-seed Dominic Thiem in the quarter-finals of the China Open.

The 32-year-old, in his first singles quarter-final in over a year following career-saving hip surgery in January, was broken early in both sets.

Murray broke back to force a tie-break when the Austrian was serving for victory at 5-4 in the second set.

But the 26-year-old, who is ranked fifth in the world, dominated the tie-break to secure victory in Beijing.

Murray moved encouragingly freely during an evenly balanced match and produced a number of signature drop shots and volleys.

Thiem will play Russia's Karen Khachanov in the semi-finals after the 23-year-old beat Italy's Fabio Fognini 3-6 6-3 6-1.

Germany's Alexander Zverev will play Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in the other semi-final after the pair overcame Americans Sam Querrey and John Isner in their respective quarter-finals.

Murray's last ATP Tour singles quarter-final appearance was a defeat by Spaniard Fernando Verdasco at the Shenzhen Open in September 2018.

The Scotsman will continue his singles comeback at the Shanghai Open this weekend after accepting a wildcard entry.

He has won the title in Shanghai on three previous occasions - in 2010, 2011 and 2016.

Meanwhile world number two Rafael Nadal, 33, who won his 19th Grand Slam title at the US Open in September, has pulled out of the tournament in Zhuhai from 5 October owing to a wrist injury.

Another East Wintergarden sell-out on the cards 
By ALAN THATCHER – Squash Mad Editor

Squash is one of the fastest games on the planet – and squash fans need to be up to speed to grab the hottest tournament tickets in London.

Tickets for the 2020 Canary Wharf Squash Classic go on general sale today (Friday October 4th) and squash fans will be racing for their phones and laptops to make sure they don’t miss out.

The 17th edition of this PSA World Tour Gold event takes place in the heart of Canary Wharf, at the fabulous East Wintergarden venue between March 8-13 next year.

London’s favourite tournament has sold out every ticket, every day for the past eight years and next year’s Classic is on course to be another sell-out.

Tournament Director Tim Garner revealed: “The annual scramble for tickets has already begun. We sold 650 tickets in the first 90 minutes of pre-sales to priority spectators on Wednesday, with partners including members of the PSA Foundation, so demand is obviously as high as ever!”

Paul Coll became the first New Zealander to win the title in March this year, beating Egyptian Tarek Momen in the final, and the world’s leading stars are once again lined up to provide some explosive entertainment in this PSA World Tour Gold event.

Action takes place on the all-glass court inside the spectacular East Wintergarden venue, with play once again beginning on a Sunday (March 8th).

Tickets are available for purchase via Ticketmaster

All of the action will be broadcast live on SQUASHTV (Rest of World),the PSA World Tour Facebook page (excluding Europe), Eurosport Player (Europe only), while action from the semi-finals will be shown by major broadcasters around the world, including BT Sport, beIN Sports, Fox Sports Australia and Astro.