Andy Murray has returned to a tennis court just two months after hip surgery - albeit somewhat tentatively.

The two-time Wimbledon champion has posted a video on Instagram of him hitting against a wall alongside the caption: "It's a start."

Murray, 31, underwent a hip resurfacing procedure in January, which he said meant it was possible he would not be able to play professionally again.

But it was his only option if he wanted to return to competitive action.

In March, the three-time Grand Slam champion said he is "pain-free" following the surgery, but his chances of playing singles at Wimbledon this year are "less than 50%".

He added he was under "no pressure" to resume a career which has also seen him win two Olympic gold medals among 45 singles titles.

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Britain's Liam Broady says he considered quitting the "dog-eat-dog world" of tennis last year as he struggled with his mental health.

Broady, 25, is currently ranked 335th in the world after reaching a career-high 154 last April.

A nine-match losing streak last summer affected his well-being and led to him seeking the help of a life coach.

"I wasn't sure if it was what I wanted to do any more because I didn't feel happy as a person," he said.

Broady approached his older sister, and WTA player, Naomi for help and then began working with life coach Phil Quirk.

"I don't really like to complain about stuff and I only started to realise how much I was going through the motions towards the end of the year," he said.

"I fell out of touch with a lot of people who care about me, which I think is probably a very guy thing to do.

"On tour it's kind of a dog-eat-dog world, you don't want to show weakness to anyone else, you don't want to say you're struggling because they're trying to take food off your plate and you're trying to take food off theirs."

Broady said turning to his older sister felt "weird" but spoke to the 29-year-old because he did not know who else to talk to about his feelings.

"There's so much talk in this country at the moment surrounding men's mental health, and I think it's really important with the [suicide] statistics we have, so I was really glad he did reach out," she said.

Broady's best performance in a Grand Slam came when he reached the Wimbledon second round in 2015 after coming from two sets down to beat Australia's Marinko Matosevic.

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The Olympic men's singles final has been reduced to best of three sets, meaning only Grand Slam matches will be played over five sets in the future.

The change will come into effect for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

Another change sees men's and women's doubles matches decided by a match tie-break to 10 points in the third set.

"These amendments reduce concerns of overplay for players who reach the latter stages of all three events," the International Tennis Federation said.

The men's final being played over three sets brings it in line with the other singles matches at the Games, while the men's and women's doubles will follow the same format as the mixed.

Britain's Andy Murray won what proved to be the last best of five sets Olympics final by beating Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro at Rio 2016.

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Wales prop Tomas Francis will still be eligible to play for his country despite extending his deal at Premiership leaders Exeter Chiefs.

Exeter have exercised a clause in the 26-year-old's existing contract to keep him at Sandy Park until at least 2021.

Any player with fewer than 60 caps has to return to Wales when their contracts expire to remain eligible for Wales.

As 40-cap Francis has had a clause enacted in his current deal rather than a new deal, the rule does not apply.

"When he initially signed his last contract there was a clause within that contract which stated his contract could be extended with us as long as various things were met. That's what's been the case," Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Sport.

"Tom's not come off contract, it's just been a very easy extension because both he wanted to stay and we wanted to keep him and we both fulfilled obligations that lengthened the extent of his contract."

British and Irish Lions players Rhys Webb and Alex Cuthbert have been ineligible to play for Wales since summer moves to Toulon and Exeter respectively as they had failed to meet the 60-cap quota, which came into force in November 2017.

Francis, who moved to Exeter from London Scottish in 2014, signed his current deal in July 2016.

"We probably had some hints that there was going to be a potential issue arising with Wales," Baxter added.

"Because of that we put various things in the contract that meant he's not put in that awkward position where he's turning down a contract in Wales, because effectively his contract's just taken on the extension period.

"He's enjoying being here, he's playing some good rugby, he's played in some huge games for us and has also had a huge Six Nations for Wales which is fantastic for him."

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Scarlets recorded a loss of £643,035 for the year ending 30 June 2018, up from £603,817 the previous year.

According to chairman Nigel Short's report, Scarlets increased business revenue by 30%, all of which he said was "reinvested into rugby".

Short and his fellow benefactors Huw Evans, Glan Wise, Philip Davies and Tim Griffiths wrote off more than £8m of debt for the region.

Scarlets owe £2.6m to Carmarthenshire County Council.

"We are pleased with the results, which are as planned," said Scarlets chief operating officer Philip Morgan.

"We have invested heavily in the playing squad, have posted record attendances and record sponsorship, while hospitality has sold out for most of the season.

"We are very happy with where we are."

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World Rugby's deadline for the Nations Championship is likely to run into next week as talks continue over whether the new concept will get off the ground.

The governing body had set a deadline of Friday for formal expressions of interest from the unions.

However, it is understood this will not be enforced so more discussions can take place before any due diligence.

Sources say there has been "real engagement" as parties try to work through the various obstacles.

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• World Rugby seeks to allay RFU fears over 'catastrophic' relegation

Scheduled to launch in 2022, the Nations Championship would see a top division of 12 teams from both hemispheres play each other once in a calendar year, either through traditional competitions like the Six Nations or an enlarged Rugby Championship, or in summer or autumn Test windows.

The top two teams would then meet in an end-of-year showpiece final.

Backed by a £5bn offer from sports marketing giants Infront, the Nations Championship would include relegation and promotion between divisions after an initial moratorium.

However, the prospect of dropping out of the Six Nations has alarmed leading northern hemisphere unions, with interim RFU boss Nigel Melville stating relegation could be "catastrophic".

World Rugby insists the second division will be both lucrative and competitive, and has spent much of the past few weeks trying to convince the concerned Six Nations unions.

It is believed the southern hemisphere superpowers who make up Sanzaar - New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Argentina - are fully in support of the Nations Championship as they battle financial difficulties and a player drain to Europe.

Of the leading northern unions, France have expressed their support for the world league, while the Welsh and English unions are thought to be amenable to the concept in theory.

The Irish and Scottish unions remain the most opposed, especially given the interest in the Six Nations from private equity giants CVC as well as other offers as part of 'Project Light', a scheme whereby the Six Nations unions pool their commercial rights.

Six Nations Limited - represented by chief executive Ben Morel - is also believed to be lukewarm about the World Rugby proposals.

However, while unanimity is needed in order for the Nations Championship to get the go-ahead, there remains optimism the concept is still alive.

"We are seeing more positivity from the staunch detractors," one source told the BBC, with another adding "this has a way to run".

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Camille Serme at Grand Sport in Yerevan, Armenia last year

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Squash standout Elisabeth Ross in action at Penn Charter. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

When Penn Charter’s middle school varsity girls lacrosse team played visiting Norwood Fontbonne Academy on a spring day in 2013, it was apparent that the youngest member of the PC squad was already one of the best players on the field. The slender sixth-grader was Elisabeth Ross, and she would go on to achieve great success in a different sport entirely, squash.

Ross, addressed almost universally by her initials, “ER”, was the U.S. Squash Under-17 national champion in 2017, and currently she’s ranked second in the country in the Under-19 category. In 2018 at the British Junior Open, a tournament which always attracts the top young players from around the world, she placed eighth. Later last year, she played for the U.S. at the Jr. World Individual Championships in Chennai, India. 

Ross has been a member of the Penn Charter upper school varsity team since she was in seventh grade, already starting off in the third position among the nine flights for the Quakers. She was PC’s number two the following year, and from her freshman year on she played in the top spot. She will continue to study and play squash at Yale University, where she was accepted in December through the early admission program.

Penn Charter Director of Squash Damon Leedale-Brown noted that she had played 100 matches for the school during her long varsity career. Facing older players from seventh through 10th grade, she lost only six times.

As a junior and senior, she went through the school season, the Mid-Atlantic Squash Association tournament and the U.S. Squash High School Team National Championships without a single loss.

“She’s always been extremely competitive, and that shows in her squash,” Leedale-Brown said. “She wins a lot of matches against strong opponents because she’s willing to fight, dig deep and do what’s necessary to win. Some people have that natural competitive instinct and some don’t. Even with her natural talents, I feel the excellence she’s been able to achieve is down to the work she puts in, her desire to better herself every day.”

Her mother, Maggie, played squash in college and currently is a middle school coach at Penn Charter. Elisabeth first began to swing a racquet at age 6, and she was playing in tournaments by 10, training at the Germantown Cricket Club.

Ross only played lacrosse during her sixth-grade year, then participated in track later in middle school. After that, her spring season was given over to the increasingly extended squash tournament season and to school service projects.

In the fall, though, she played field hockey all the way through her senior season, with her superb eye-hand coordination making her an asset for Penn Charter teams.

“I love the team aspect of field hockey,” she said, but she also enjoys the individual focus of the game of squash.

“It gives you a way to challenge yourself all the time,” she explained. “The whole game is literally about how well you played; there’s no one else out there except your opponent. Because it’s a sport with a lot of different aspects, there are always ways to make yourself better and test yourself.”

Leedale-Brown is not a coach who wants to have his charges playing squash to the exclusion of all other sports.

He noted, “I think in understanding Elisabeth’s success it’s important that she’s not just been a squash player. I think the field hockey has actually helped in certain aspects of her squash. It’s provided some balance – not being able to play as much squash in the fall may have helped keep her healthy. It’s worked out well for her, because she peaks at the right time for the end of the season and the major tournaments.”

Elisabeth Ross is pictured after winning the Under-17 National Championship in 2017.

The coach related that “She was a pretty capable player even in seventh grade. She had a well-rounded skill set. In seventh and eighth grade, she struggled at times to manage her emotions; at times even when she won a game she would come off the court a cry a little. Being able to control her feelings kicked in in high school, and ever since ninth grade she’s been a great role model and an inspiring teammate for our other players.”

Ross commented, “I’m an emotional player and when I was younger it showed outwardly, but I’ve learned how to channel it back into playing squash. Sometimes I’ll lose focus and get down in a game, but then I’ll be like ‘No, you don’t want to lose’ and then I’ll come back and win.

“I think I made some big steps in that area in eighth and ninth grade,” she continued. “I was playing girls who were so much older than I was that to keep up with them, I had to mature myself.”

Leedale-Brown observed, “Playing number three and two at such a young age meant that with the talent in this area, she was already facing some of the best players in the country. That definitely helped her development.”

Speaking of her growth from a standpoint of technique, Ross related, “I used to have a really bad forehand, so I’ve worked very hard to make my forehand and backhand equal. Actually, this season is the first time I’ve felt really confident with my forehand and not afraid to play down that wall.”

Leedale-Brown said, “She’s extremely focused and extremely ‘present’ on the court. She has a natural instinct to press forward and volley and take the ball early. She’s always looking to cut the ball out and put pressure on her opponent, which is why she’s hard to play. I think she’s consistently been one of the best in her age group in terms of her athleticism and her ability to cover the court.

“In recent years,” he went on, “She’s developed more variations; the ability to lift, change rhythm and be a little more creative in certain area of the court.”

Through her high school years there haven’t been schoolmates who could seriously challenge her status as the Quakers’ number one, but Ross didn’t take her position for granted and never shirked her responsibilities to the team as whole.

“Elisabeth would never even think that would be appropriate because she has that great sense of team,” Leedale-Brown said. “She’s not a vocal kind of leader; Hatti Specter [a fellow senior this year] filled that role well for us. Elisabeth’s dedication and commitment always shows through and serves as an example. She’s there every day working hard, and she helps her teammates raise their level. She displays a great sense of humility in the midst of all her success, and that says a lot about her.”

In the classroom, Ross gravitates toward the areas of history and science.

“I could pursue biology or chemistry in college, but I’m not entirely certain about that right now,” she explained.

Her school service projects in the spring have included serving at the St. Francis Inn soup kitchen in the Kensington section of the city, and working in the after-school program at the Widener Memorial School in Olney, which serves students with physical and medical disabilities.

“I enjoy it a lot, because I form connections with the kids and we do a lot of things together,” she said.

Ross also performs in the Penn Charter Symphonic Band, having learned to play the French Horn in sixth grade.

In the college selection process, Ross narrowed her choices down to a short list that included Yale, Harvard and Columbia.

On her visit to Yale, she said, “I really just had this vibe that this was a good fit for me.”

Another top player from the Philadelphia area, Lower Merion High School’s Jed Burde, will also be a member of the freshman class at Yale in the fall. Ross noted that the senior assistant coach at Yale, Lynn Leong, has already talked to her about preparing for collegiate competition.

“She told me I should expect the college game to be a lot more physical than the juniors game, so I’m working on my fitness and conditioning,” the PC senior said.

Ross has attended Penn Charter since kindergarten, and enjoyed the entire experience.

She explained, “I liked how much it had to offer; good academics, sports, service opportunities, art and music. I got to do a little bit of everything, and I don’t think anything’s been left out of my school career.”

Like most high-level squash players, she wishes her favorite sport could gain a wider audience.

“It’s really fast-paced and it displays a lot of athleticism,” she said. “The rallies are very intense, with people hitting amazing shots and the other players getting to them somehow. A good match is riveting to watch, and I think more people should experience it.”

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Saurav Ghosal doesn’t pause to reflect on the question he has just been asked. Considering his body of work has spanned over 15 years, a moment or two to reflect on his performances over the years wouldn’t have been out of place. But he is quick to say that “this is the best I have ever played... so, yeah, you can say that.”

Even if the trigger for the query — “is this the best you have ever played?” — was Ghosal achieving his best-ever ranking of World No 10 on Monday, the 32-year-old has quietly compiled some of his best results this season. Quarterfinal appearances at the Worlds and the Black Ball Open (PSA Platinum event) coupled with a semifinal at the China Open (PSA Gold event) have taken him to a new high.  

ALSO READ: Saurav Ghosal becomes first Indian male to enter top-10 in PSA rankings

Needless to say, he is delighted with his recent returns after a trying 2017-18 season. “(...) some more history to create,” was how he noted his new high on Twitter.

So, what led to it? “This is the result of a process that I have followed... it just does not happen overnight,” he said from England. But he dropped with the cliches to talk about the mental transformation his game has undergone in the last 12 months. “I think mentally I am more secure with my game. I know what I want out of my training sessions and I know how to get them now.”

This isn’t to say he was searching for that all these years. “I am at peace with my game. That kind of security only comes with maturity, so you could say I am more mature now,” says the player.   

He says a lot of credit for this should go to his two coaches, Malcolm Willstrop and David Palmer. “David has helped me a lot since joining last summer. Just knowing that there are two guys like that in your corner is of immense benefit.”

That maturity also comes through when he is talking about the returns, or the lack thereof, that squash players have to endure in the three years without Asian and Commonwealth Games. For someone like Ghosal, whose win percentage this season is significantly higher than his lifetime average (64.2 compared to 56.1), the three fallow years is even more of a concern because time is running out. He himself is well aware of that but doesn’t want to think too far ahead all the same.

“No one knows to be honest... anything could happen in the next three years. That (be around for the 2022 Asian and CWG) is a long-term goal but I want to take it year by year for the time being.” If that approach continues to yield maximum returns, the player with roots in Kolkata will celebrate a new high pretty soon.  

April means anxiety for college applicants. It is the month when admissions offices send out acceptance and rejection letters. Admissions anxiety escalated early this year when, in March, national media focused on the Varsity Blues scandal in which the FBI found evidence of bribery and admissions fraud at Georgetown University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas and Yale University.

Athletics was the “side door” that unscrupulous consultants used to help create fake all-stars to gain admission to prestigious colleges, especially in sports characterized as elite or privileged. The scheme became the admissions version of the Great Train Robbery. According to The New York Times, “The ruse was oddly simple. Since college coaches can often recommend more athletes to the admissions department than a team needs, why not buy a few slots from the coaches and sell them to parents desperate to get their children into the most selective universities?”

The Times reporters’ explanation generated more heat than light because it ran counter to the customary uses and abuses of athletics in college admissions. The traditional scandal was an ambitious coach who tried to enroll a talented athlete who did not have adequate high school grades and test scores. With the Varsity Blues cases, however, some coaches and athletic officials accepted bribes to advocate admission of an applicant who offered little as either an athlete or a student.

To show how this scheme contrasts with conventional procedures used to monitor academics and athletics in admissions, it’s useful to look at one conference and its colleges. For example, the Ivy League and its eight members are a significant case because they play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division I and their academic standards for admission are high.

The athletic admissions scam was surprising because few college coaches, including those in the Ivy League, have the luxury of recommending more athletes for admission than a team needs. The opposite is usually the case -- coaches must negotiate for a number of slots. This may be determined in part by NCAA limits on squad size or limits on allowable grants in aid and/or by a conference. “Stockpiling” of extra athletic admits for a team is rare because it means coaches from other sports probably are required to reduce their quota of recommendations for admits. In the Ivy League, each sport has a limit on the number of recruited athletes it is allowed. Football, for example, is allowed an average of 30 student athletes per admitted class.

At academically selective colleges, coaches face another internal hurdle. They must persuade the president, the provost, admissions officers and the athletics director that their particular sport warrants admissions spaces. Any admissions slots given to a coach would take away available slots from other student activities.

Why, for example, should a tennis coach be given five admissions recruits per year when directors of performing arts are also vying for talented recruits? It is a high-stakes deliberation and zero-sum game defined by strict limits on entering class size. To make the trade-offs even more complicated, every admissions slot dedicated to a talented student athlete could mean one less space for a nonmerit admit, such as an alumni legacy or the child of a generous donor.

These deliberations make admission of student athletes complex and competitive. For the Ivy League, it is a three-dimensional chess game. A crucial document for defining the rules of the game is the Academic Index, commonly known as the “AI.”

The AI and other selectivity measures mean that coaches are usually required to make recommendations for admitting recruited athletes within strict academic guidelines. In the Ivy League, a recruit must be within the bands of proximity to the overall profile of admitted students according to grades and SAT scores. If not, faculty complain about overemphasis. The coach and the admissions committee may go beneath the bands but usually only for a very talented and exceptional athlete. And any exception to the composite index must be compensated by having other recruits who are above the academic norms. In the case of the Ivy League, the scrutiny takes place within the institution and also is subjected to review by coaches and faculty representatives across the conference.

This latter provision means that the AI promotes “honor among thieves” within the coaching ranks of the Ivy League. They all know the rosters and data of their rivals and can raise objections. The wrestling team at Princeton University, for example, cannot have a composite AI that is out of whack with the norms for all student athletes in the conference or against the profile of Princeton’s entering class. The two-pronged objective is to build a floor of academic eligibility of athletes across all teams compared to the profile of member universities and, at the same time, discourage any coach from being a vagabond who chronically recruits student athletes whose academic records are egregiously subpar.

Another complication is that the Ivy League is distinctive among conferences in NCAA Division I in that it prohibits athletics grants in aid. Scholarship awards without loans are generous, but they are need-based and open to all applicants. There are no special funds for recruited athletes. Consider a situation in which the coach of Harvard University’s women’s soccer team is competing with Stanford and Northwestern University to recruit a high school senior who is a nationally acclaimed goalkeeper. She has high SAT scores and a 3.9 grade point average, yet her family income indicates that she does not qualify for need-based financial aid. Since athletic grants in aid are not need-based, Stanford and Northwestern can each offer her a full scholarship worth about $65,000 per year, whereas Harvard and other Ivy League institutions cannot award her any financial aid.

The peculiarities of Ivy League athletics and admissions surfaced in another recent article in The New York Times, as reporters noted, “The scandal has raised questions about whether such athletic preferences are fair -- or even necessary.” This then led to one high-profile college admissions counselor to tell reporters, “Ivy League and sports, to me that’s an oxymoron.”

This characterization of the Ivy League and sports was intriguing but not convincing for very long. In the same day’s issue of the Times, the headline story of the sports section was about American figure skating champion Nathan Chen, who is an undergraduate at Yale. Turning to the third page of the same sports section, another Times article reported that Bella Alarie “became a must-see player for the Princeton women’s basketball team” and is “looking to make an unusual leap from the Ivy League” to an extended career in the WNBA.

One can add to these selected biographical profiles of student athletes some statistics. The record books in recent years show Ivy League teams winning national championships in several sports, including men’s lacrosse, women’s soccer, men’s ice hockey, men’s crew and women’s crew. Cornell University’s wrestling team are consistently among the strongest in the nation. Ivy League student athletes include numerous individual champions in several sports, including wrestling and swimming, along with alumni who qualify to compete on Olympic squads.

In response to the rhetorical question in The New York Times as to whether athletic preferences are fair or necessary, the Ivy League represents a deliberate model to show that intercollegiate athletics are important. The conference sponsors 35 varsity sports. Harvard, for example, offers 42 varsity sports -- the most of any university in the NCAA. Reliance on the Academic Index indicates an approach with the intent to assure that this substantial commitment to sports stays within bounds academically.

But the AI operates on the presumption that a coach seeks admission for student athletes who will contribute to a winning team and also be academically suitable within the campus. As suggested by the scandal of recent weeks, these measures cannot guard against a coach or athletic official who literally plays by different rules using illegal acts to pursue other, dubious goals.

A side effect of the recent scandals has been allusion to the privileged character of many nonrevenue sports such as crew and squash that the Ivy League and other conferences offer. One partial reform for sports that are tilted toward affluent students might be to follow the example of Trinity University, a collegiate squash power, which has established a squash developmental program and league for elementary and high school students in the community, drawing from all family income groups. It has led numerous participants to receive athletic scholarships for squash.

Some of the media criticisms about allegedly elite sports seem wrongheaded. When the University of Southern California was charged with using its varsity crew team as a convenient place for fraudulent admits, college rowers elsewhere felt betrayed and perplexed by USC’s actions. The culture of intercollegiate crew is one of dedication and sacrifice, with few commercial rewards.

Furthermore, college crew coaches ranging from the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley, on the Pacific coast, extending to the University of Wisconsin and on to Harvard are resourceful in identifying raw talent from the ranks of high school swimmers and basketball players who may never have rowed prior to enrolling in college. One can find elaboration on this in such accounts as David Halberstam’s The Last Amateurs or in Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat.

The Ivy League’s decision to sponsor a large number of varsity sports includes a commitment to trying to fulfill gender equity in student activities. It shows how a conference can change to accept the letter and spirit of Title IX, especially after one Ivy institution faced a serious legal challenge in the courts when it cut some women’s varsity teams.

The Ivy League is not the Big Ten, nor is it the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Pac-12 or the Southeastern Conference. Within the NCAA, each conference and college must establish its own philosophy of how academics and athletics are to coexist. At very least, the Ivy League presidents and admissions officers have worked, and should continue to work, with coaches and faculty members to operationalize their ideas and ideals as part of the high stakes of selective college admissions.

Neither the structures nor strategies are static. As such, they are open to review and reform as new problems and prospects surface. About 10 years ago, presidents at several Ivy League universities considered eliminating some sports, such as varsity wrestling. And, of course, university presidents and all constituencies can and should discuss what is appropriate allocation of admissions recommendations for varsity sports as part of the educational mission.

In addition, the Ivy League administrators may wish to consider measures that will prevent the kinds of abuses uncovered in the past month that used athletics as an unethical and illegal means to gain admissions advantages. But such concerns should be dealt with in an informed, open forum and based on institutional goals and priorities. To dismiss varsity sports and the Academic Index out of hand as expendable and archaic is to overlook the heritage and promise of a sound scholar-athlete program as central, not peripheral, to the Ivy League undergraduate experience.