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Sports Interational
TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
January 13-19, 2018
Durant becomes second-youngest player in NBA history to reach 20,000 career points GOLDEN State Warriors star Kevin Durant became the newest member of the NBA’s 20,000-point club on Wednesday night at Oracle Arena, hitting a pull-up jumper from 22 feet late in the second quarter over the Los Angeles Clippers’ Montrel Harrel to become the 48th player in league history to hit that mark. Durant, who needed 25 points to reach the milestone and wasted no time doing so before halftime, was briefly honored by the sellout crowd in attendance as a highlight reel of his sensational scoring ways played on the jumbotron. The natural question now, of course, is how much farther up the scoring ranks he might go. If Durant is able to stay healthy, it’s only a matter of time until he becomes the ninth member of the 30,000-point club. (LeBron James is 126 points away from becoming the eighth.) At his recent rate of scoring (25.3 points per game since joining the Warriors last season), and averaging 80 games played per season, he would reach it during the 2022-23 season. Yet health has been a major issue for Durant in recent years, with injuries costing him 55 games in the 2014-15 campaign and a combined
Alexis Sánchez came on as a substitute in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea on Wednesday night.
Kevin Durant is the youngest player since Lebron James to reach the mark.
30 in the past two seasons. In his seven prior seasons, Durant played 97.1% of the regular season schedule (542 of 558 games). If he were able to return to his Ironman ways, then it might be tempting to play long enough to surpass Kareem AbdulJabbar (38,387) as the top scorer of all time — if, of course, James hasn’t already done it by that point. Here’s how that rose-colouredglasses math might look: If Durant somehow averaged that 25.3 pointsper-game pace and averaged 80
games played, he would reach the mark during the 2026-27 campaign. No matter the outcome, it’s clear that Durant is well on his way to going down as one of the greats. “It would be nice to be in that (30,000-point group),” Durant told The Athletic recently. “That’s like the prime scorer’s number: 30K. ... I may have to play a lot to get there. But for now, I’m cool with the trajectory I’m on. I’m cool with the progress I’m making. We’ll see.” (USAToday)
Federer given tricky draw at Australian Open ROGER Federer will begin the defense of his Australian Open title against Slovenia’s Aljaz Bedene. The world No. 2 has landed in the trickier half of the draw, where Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, Alex Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Tomas Berdych and Gael Monfils all potentially await. Federer will also have to contend with Milos Raonic and Juan Martin del Potro in his section of the draw, and may have to beat David Goffin to reach the semifinals -- an opponent he lost against at the year-ending ATP Finals in November. “I thought my game wasn’t going to be good enough for that day and it was,” Federer recalled of his epic 2017 final against Nadal. “That fifth set against Rafa was maybe the best set I’ve ever played. It was definitely my highlight of 2017.” Rafael Nadal, last year’s beaten finalist, is undoubtedly in the more favorable half and would avoid both Federer and Djokovic until the final. The world No. 1 opens his campaign against 37-year-old Dominican Victor Estrella Burgos, while the biggest danger in his quarter of the draw is big-serving Croat Marin Cilic. Six-time Australian Open winner Djokovic, who has dropped to 14th in the
Manchester United offer £25m for Sánchez in attempt to hijack City deal MANCHESTER United have made a bid to sign Alexis Sánchez from Arsenal as José Mourinho attempts to scupper Manchester City’s hopes of securing the Chile forward this month. Sánchez has already agreed personal terms worth around £250,000 a week with Pep Guardiola’s side, with City having submitted a £20m offer for the 29-year-old earlier this week. Arsenal have yet to respond to that but it is understood United have since entered the race with a bid in the region of £25m. Their proposal would also see Sánchez earn more than proposed by City, with Mourinho believed to be confident of winning the race despite the forward having played under Guardiola at Barcelona. United have offered Arsenal
the opportunity to sign Henrikh Mkhitaryan, although a stumbling block to that deal could be the Armenian international’s wages, which are believed to be around £200,000 a week. Sánchez’s representatives have already held talks with City having agreed to join them last summer, only for the deal to collapse when Arsenal failed to sign Thomas Lemar as a replacement on deadline day. He remains a target for Arsène Wenger, although the Frenchman is also keen on signing Malcom from Bordeaux and held preliminary talks with his agent this week. The Brazilian forward is understood to have another firm proposal to leave this month, although not from United or Tottenham, who have both been linked with the 20-year-old in recent weeks.
The world No. 2 has landed in the trickier half of the draw, where Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, Alex Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Tomas Berdych and Gael Monfils all potentially await.
world after six months out with injury, will play American Donald Young and faces a potentially mouthwatering second-round match against Monfils. Wawrinka, the 2014 champion, also makes his return from injury and is drawn against Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis, while world No. 3 and last year’s semifinalist Grigor Dimitrov faces two undecided qualifiers in his opening rounds. The absence of reigning champion Serena Williams, who last week said she is “not where I want to be” following the birth of her daughter in September, gives several other protagonists the chance to come to
fore in the women’s side of the draw. Williams remarkably revealed she was in fact two months pregnant when she won last year’s title, beating older sister Venus in the final. In a recent interview with Vogue, Serena revealed some of the severe health complications she suffered in the weeks after giving birth to Alexis Olympia. She described how “everything went bad” after a flawless emergency cesarean section. What followed was a lung clot, clotted blood in her abdomen and more than one operation, before spending six weeks unable to get out of bed.
In 2017, Kazuyoshi Miura (centre) became the first 50-year-old player to score in the Japanese league.
Japanese striker Miura signs new deal at 50 STRIKER Kazuyoshi Miura, who turns 51 next month, has signed a new contract with Japanese second division club Yokohama FC. The deal means he will enter the 33rd season of his record-breaking career, which began at the Brazilian side Santos in 1986. “I will always play my heart out
and hope to continue to grow (as a player),” he told Kyodo news agency. The former Genoa and Dinamo Zagreb player has been at Yokohama since 2005. Capped 89 times for his country, Miura’s 139 goals place him sixth in the all-time list of top scorers in J-League’s top division.