Britain's Cameron Norrie has been beaten by teenage American qualifier Learner Tien in the opening round of the Mexican Open in Acapulco.

Norrie, who is now 74th in the world, was beaten 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 by the 19-year-old, who is ranked nine places below him.

The Briton had won the only previous meeting between the pair, in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Tien led 4-1 in the opener before Norrie recovered and served for the set at 5-4. But he was broken and Tien went on to take the subsequent tie-break and control the match after that.

Second seed Casper Ruud advanced to round two by beating France's Arthur Rinderknech 6-4 6-3 while American pair Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton, the third and fifth seeds respectively, also went through.

Petra Kvitova's return from maternity leave after a 17-month absence ended in defeat as Britain's Jodie Burrage battled back to win in three sets at the ATX Open.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova, 34, was contesting her first WTA match since 2 October 2023, at the China Open in Beijing.

The Czech made a positive start and won the opening set but the 25-year-old Burrage outlasted her opponent to win 3-6 6-4 6-4.

Burrage, ranked 189 in the world, will play Australian Ajla Tomljanovic in the second round.

Kvitova, who gave birth to her son, Petr, last July, did not know whether she would return to tennis before her break.

She has said she was partly inspired to return after seeing fellow players such as Elina Svitolina, Naomi Osaka and Belinda Bencic do so after giving birth.

Back on the court, Kvitova raced into a four-game lead with an early double break of serve in Austin.

Burrage, who reached the second round at the Australian Open in January, threatened a fightback as she reduced the deficit to 5-3, only for Kvitova to break again and seal the opening set.

Former world number two Kvitova, who turns 35 in March, twice broke back as Burrage applied pressure in the second set, but the Englishwoman struck again in the ninth game before holding serve to love to force a decider.

Both players were unable to seize break point opportunities at the start of the third set.

But the decisive moment arrived when Burrage saw off four break points to hold for 4-4, before breaking Kvitova in the following game and serving out the contest.

Fellow Briton Fran Jones reached the second round of the Merida Open in Mexico.

Qualifier Jones, ranked 136 in the world, led 6-4 3-0 before opponent Mayar Sherif, of Egypt, was forced to retire.

What Simmons can recall, however, is the moment that ultimately ended his career.

He tracked a Leinster pass that sailed over his head and as he shaped up to try to stop his man, the fend-off from the visitors' Ireland winger James Lowe went horribly wrong for the scrambling Tiger, who described the incident as "a freak accident".

"His finger went up into my eye and did a fair bit of damage," Simmons recalls.

"Initially everything, the whole vision in my right eye, just went black. I didn't know if my eye was closed or open.

"There was blood pouring our of my eye, which is never a good sign."

He was rushed to hospital, but it was not for another two weeks that he underwent surgery as the initially swelling masked the severity of the injury.

"I had tried to train in that time, which was not the best idea, but we didn't know at the time," he said.

"Then I had an appointment in February and they said 'you need to go into emergency surgery right now'. That was pretty scary because it it went from thinking it was not too bad to thinking this is very serious."

Simmons said the surgery to reattach his retina was deemed a success, although damage to his pupil could not be fixed.

Months of inactivity followed as his eye was given time to heal.

It was not until he returned to the pitch to train that "different symptoms" became apparent and that he had to consider what impact resurrecting his career could have on his sight.

"From the surgery, just the way the new structure of my eye was and how the muscles behind my eyes were damaged, meant my eyes were slightly off," Simmons said. "And they were only off when I was looking up and to the side; my normal vision was quite fine so I hadn't really noticed it in the stand-down period.

"But when suddenly chucked into training you have got all sorts of stuff going on and I'm getting dizzy and light headed. My double vision was really bad.

"That, combined with the ruptured pupil, which means a lot more light goes into that eye, catching high balls under floodlight or under the sun suddenly became a lot harder."

Simmons said that he, with the support coaches and staff at Leicester, "threw the kitchen sink" at trying to adapt his game to cope with the changes.

All the while, he was trying to push for a comeback despite "the fear and risk of reinjury".

"In my mind I always wanted to play again," he said.

"Once you have detached your retina once, you are a lot more likely to do it again. And doing it again for me meant I would lose all vision in that eye, which at 26 years old would not have been ideal.

"From surgery, really, I woke up a worse rugby player, which was even more frustrating for me than the risks of it was."

Gloucester have agreed to sign former London Irish back Ben Loader this summer.

The 26-year-old, who can play at wing or full-back, will move from South African side Stormers in time for the start of next season.

Loader moved to the United Rugby Championship club after Irish folded in the summer of 2023 and has made 21 appearances for the Cape Town-based side.

The former England youth player played 75 times for London Irish over six years, having come up through the club's academy.

"Ben was another player at Irish that was thriving there when they ran into their difficulties," Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington told the club website.

"He's moved away to a new country and team and used it as an experience to learn and grow and that's been impressive.

"He's everything you want from a back three player, fast, powerful, agile and his ability to play wing and full-back will be really handy throughout a long season."

Gloucester have not disclosed the length of deal Loader has signed at Kingsholm.

Ireland full-back Jamie Osborne says the team face big challenges in their final two Six Nations games against France and Italy.

Osborne scored Ireland's second try on Saturday as they defeated Wales 27-18 to secure a 14th Triple Crown.

That victory made it three wins from three matches for the leaders as they chase a record third successive Six Nations title, and a potential Grand Slam.

France, who hammered Italy on Sunday, are up next in Dublin on 8 March before Ireland finish away against the Italians a week later.

"They're going to be two incredibly tough games," said the Leinster back.

"We'll take a week's break and concentrate on France, but it will be incredibly tough. We're not going to focus on that [breaking records], we'll focus on the France game first."

Ireland's Garry Ringrose was shown a 20-minute red card in the first half in Cardiff and visitors fought back from 18-10 down to earn victory.

"It shows how much belief we have as a team. We made a few errors in the first half and let Wales back into the game," added Osborne.

"We were down at the break, but there was no real panic in the dressing room, everyone just thought to go back to basics, clean up accuracy and errors and we did that thankfully.

"Most of the team are very experienced and there have been a number of games where they have had to overcome a bit of adversity, and it shows we have what it takes to overcome those kinds of things."

Baxter said it was "50-50" whether or not the injury required surgery and added it was a difficult first test case for the new agreement.

As part of England getting control of the country's best 25 players, the RFU agreed a deal to up their funding to the 10 Premiership clubs.

"He had two scans and an operation was decided upon initially 10 days post the injury, which would make him fit now," he added.

"I think that's the frustration - I think everyone can understand the various bits and pieces which led to some of the delays and that ended up being the rehab decision being the more sensible one.

"Ultimately now it doesn't look like the sensible one because the shoulder clearly needed an operation."

But Baxter said Feyi-Waboso still had a chance of being a "wildcard" to make the British and Irish Lions squad this summer.

The medical student burst onto the scene at the beginning of last season and opted to play for England rather than his native Wales.

He won his first cap in last year's Six Nations and has gone on to play eight times, scoring five tries including in each of England's two summer Tests in New Zealand.

"There often seems to be in a Lions year someone that comes in a little bit out of nowhere, they've either been injured or not quite broken through," said Baxter, who saw Jack Nowell make the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand.

"He's going to be there or thereabouts with a shot of getting in there at some stage, but all we can do is work hard with him now.

"He'll be very focused on giving himself the best opportunity - bigger picture and longer term he's probably having the right treatment now that will look after him for a longer period of time rather than potentially leaving him with a grumbling shoulder that can last two or three years."

"Matt Sherritt's changed the narrative, he's changed the mindset of not only the Welsh team but the Welsh public.

"But it's a different story when you lift that Welsh team up and take them out of Cardiff. And I think, for Scotland, they have to exert what they would view as being this cohesion, this togetherness, this understanding of what it takes to win big test matches at Murrayfield.

"I think they've got to get into Wales and it is incomprehensible to think of Scotland being one from four after the Wales game.

"Scotland have to take all the frustration of Allianz Stadium from the weekend and say 'We're going to be ruthless. When we get the chance in the red zone, we're going to be patient, but we're going to be punchy and we're going to take our opportunities when they come'."

Even though the Scots' championship hopes are gone for another year, Lawson says there is still plenty to play for in the final two matches at home to Wales and away to France.

"We know with the Scotland team, they create opportunities, they can create field position and they have game breakers," he added.

"Scotland have to go into this game looking to deliver a result that takes us on the road to Paris with some element of hope of grabbing something from this championship, albeit only two wins from four after that Wales game, hopefully."