ALAS Pilipinas fell to China, 18-25, 22-25, 8-25, in the Asian Games women’s volleyball opener at the Okazaki Chuo Sogo Park Gymnasium in Japan on Wednesday. The Filipino volleybelles managed to be competitive against the defending champs, especially in the second frame, but collapsed in the third as the Chinese dominated to secure the Pool B win. Alas fell into a 4-19 hole and trailed by as many as 17 points, 7-24, in the third set. China finished the match in one hour and eight minutes. Angel Canino fired 14 points to lead Alas as Eya Laure aided her with 10. Alyssa Solomon chipped in nine points for the Taka Minowa-coached team. Thea Gagate and Dell Palomata added three and two points, respectively. The Filipinos put up the most fight in the second set, where they came back from a 16-20 deficit and tie the count at 20 following a Gagate block on Tang Xin. Staying composed, the Chinese responded with a 4-0 run to eventually take the set. China carried the momentum in the third frame as it shut down the Philippines, which is now in a must-win situation against Kazakhstan on Thursday. A loss will end the Filipinos’ quarterfinal bid and relegate them to classification matches. Tang banged 18 points to lead the Chinese as Yushan Zhuang punched 17. Aoqian Wang chipped in 13 markers.

LOS ANGELES, California — The Toronto Raptors have finally acquired Kawhi Leonard back from the Los Angeles Clippers, in a trade that was delayed due to an NBA probe into major salary cap violations concerning the star forward. The Raptors confirmed in a statement that Leonard would return to the franchise where he played 2018–2019, after the NBA investigation concluded earlier this month, and the Clippers said they would comply with the league’s penalties. “We’re thrilled to welcome Kawhi back to Toronto. His impact on our organization, our city and our country is undeniable, and he embodies the competitiveness and championship mindset that we value,” said Raptors general manager Bobby Webster in a statement. “We believe his leadership, experience and talent will help us as we continue building toward our next championship.” Leonard was acquired in exchange for forward Brandon Ingram, guard-forward Gradey Dick, two future first-round draft picks, one future first-round pick swap and two future second-round picks. “We also want to thank Brandon and Gradey, and appreciate their work ethic, character and basketball excellence they brought to our team every day,” said the Raptors. During his previous Raptors stint, Leonard helped Toronto win its first and only NBA championship. Leonard subsequently moved to the Clippers, where he became embroiled in controversy. Earlier this month, the Clippers were found to have aided Leonard in evading salary cap rules in deals with team corporate sponsors. The Clippers were stripped of five first-round draft picks and fined $30 million by the NBA. Leonard was fined $700,000. The Clippers had agreed to trade Leonard to Toronto in July, but the Raptors said they would await the result of the investigation before finalizing the deal. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer said on Sunday he would comply with the NBA’s punishment even though he disagreed with aspects of the league’s probe, paving the way for the trade to be completed.

BUENOS AIRES — Lionel Messi was on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) named in Argentina’s squad for a friendly against Benin on Oct. 6, a match that will serve as his farewell appearance after announcing his international retirement last month. The 39-year-old said in August he was retiring from Argentina duty after a two-decade international career that included winning the 2022 World Cup and Copa America triumphs in 2021 and 2024. “We made the decision to invite the best player in the world, the symbol of our national team, our captain, Lionel Andres Messi, so that he can have the farewell he truly deserves on Oct. 6 here in Argentina,” said Argentine FA president Claudio Tapia. The match against Benin will take place at River Plate’s Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires, which can accommodate 85,000 spectators. Tapia also invited all of Argentina’s 2022 World Cup winners to join Messi for what he said would be an “unforgettable” occasion. Argentina begin a series of three friendlies against Bolivia on Sept. 30 in Cordoba — their first match since losing the World Cup final to Spain — before taking on Burkina Faso in Buenos Aires on Oct. 3. Messi has been included in the squad for the third match against Benin, when he is expected to make his 208th and final appearance for the national team. He is Argentina’s all-time record scorer with 125 goals. Following the death of his father Jorge last month, Messi had said he had “serious doubts” about continuing to play football of any sort for “much longer.” “It was a decision that hurt and still hurts deep in my soul, but I understand that it is the right time,” Messi said when he called time on his Argentina career. His contract with Major League Soccer club Inter Miami runs until the end of the 2028 season. Last month, FIFA ordered Argentina to play their next home match with capacity reduced to 50 percent for breaches of its disciplinary code relating to using a sports event for making demonstrations of a nonsporting nature. After Argentina beat England, 2-1, in a tense World Cup semifinal in July, several players held up a banner saying: “The Falklands are Argentine.”

CEO Brian Rolapp said on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) the PGA Tour is not considering a path back for LIV Golf players like the program it offered Brooks Koepka and three other top players at the start of the year. LIV’s future has never been more murky after the rival circuit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week as it plots a new model no longer bankrolled by the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund. Still to be determined is how many players stick around for the less lucrative “LIV 2.0.” The other part of the equation is where else they would go. Koepka got out of the last year of his LIV contract and was offered a path back to the PGA Tour through the “returning member program.” Rolapp then offered that to Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith — all major champions since 2022 when LIV launched — and gave them a three-week deadline to accept with no guarantee it would be offered again. “In terms of where we are today, we are not currently contemplating a returning member program like the one you saw in January,” Rolapp said on a conference call to discuss the eligibility for the new competition model on the PGA Tour that starts in 2028. “Everyone at the PGA Tour, myself included, has been focused on what is best for the organization.” Rolapp has leaned into meritocracy in the new model, making players earn their place. Koepka, along with the other players offered a return, had five-year exemptions from winning majors. Koepka was required to pay $5 million to charity, and he had no access to player equity grants for five years. He also was not eligible for any of the $20-million signature events unless he qualified for them through his play. Koepka failed to get into any of those tournaments, and he did not qualify for the PGA Tour’s postseason. Rahm has been elusive when it comes to his plans. He has one year left on the contract he signed ahead of the 2024 LIV season and now that contract is in doubt because of the Chapter 11 filing. “There’s a long legal process they have to go through before a lot of things fall into place,” Rahm said on Tuesday at the BMW PGA Championship on the European tour. “I really can’t give you an answer right now. ... Until this current season is done, I really won’t be able to give you an answer.”

Sri Lanka’s Asian Games 2026 medal prospect Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage returned home after winning the title at a top international event on Tuesday to find his prized javelins in pieces. The 23-year-old rising star, who has taken the javelin world by storm this year with a series of impressive victories, was heartbroken to discover that

BUSAN — When the elevator doors opened at Busan e-sports Arena in central Seomyeon on Sept. 5, a black partition blocked the view. Although normally open to the public, the venue was closed to outsiders that day, converted into an exclusive training camp reserved for the national esports team. With national team insignia and cheering slogans filling the interior walls, the facility resembled the Jincheon National Training Center, Korea’s premier Olympic training complex. The national esports team, competing in the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, is finalizing preparations at the venue. League of Legends (LoL) national team players, including Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, will join the Busan camp after completing their domestic seasons. The Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) announced on Monday that the LoL roster finished their domestic schedules Sunday and traveled directly to Busan to begin a bootcamp and scrims. The squad will play warm-up matches against Thailand and Vietnam this weekend to prepare. Led by head coach Kang Dong-hoon, former head coach of KT Rolster, the roster features L

NAGOYA, Japan — Korea breezed past Jordan 114-80 to reach the semifinals of the men's basketball tournament at the Asian Games in Japan on Wednesday, moving within two wins of claiming its first gold medal in a dozen years. Korea dominated Jordan in all aspects in the blowout quarterfinal victory at Aichi International Arena in Nagoya, central Japan, where forward Lee Hyun-jung led the way with 28 points on 10-of-15 shooting in just under 21 minutes of action. He drained six three-pointers in 10 attempts and also grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. Coached by Nikolajs Mazurs, Korea has now won four straight games in Nagoya, having run the table in the preliminary phase with wins over Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Japan. In Friday's semifinals, Korea will face the winner of the Iran-Bahrain contest set for Wednesday afternoon. Korea last won the men's hoops gold medal in 2014 on its home soil of Incheon. Korea then settled for bronze in 2018 before getting eliminated in the quarterfinals in 2023. Korea set the tone early, starting the game with a 10-0 run and playing some smothering defense

Japanese media have turned their attention to Ri Song-a, a Zainichi Korean football player representing North Korea at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. Zainichi Koreans are ethnic Koreans who reside in Japan, a community largely rooted in Koreans who migrated to Japan during the Japanese colonial rule and their descendants. Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported Tuesday that “North Korea won its opening women’s football match by a large margin,” noting that “the Japanese government made an exception to allow North Korean athletes to enter the country.” The North Korean women’s national football team, led by coach Pak Song-jin, defeated Bangladesh 10-0 in their opening Group F match of the women’s football tournament at Nagai Stadium in Osaka on Monday. North Korea is considered a powerhouse in women’s football at the Asian Games. Seeking its first gold medal since the 2014 Incheon Games, the team showed its offensive strength from the opening match of this year’s tournament. North Korean forward Ri started the match and played the full 90 minutes. She scored the t

As losses piled up for the men's national basketball team in the weeks leading up to the Asian Games, so did criticism of the squad. Fans and pundits alike wondered if Korea, coached by the Latvian Nikolajs Mazurs, had what it takes to reach the podium at the Asian Games in Japan this month. With each passing game here, though, Korea has been authoring a new narrative. Mazurs' team ran the table in the group phase, highlighted by a convincing, 100-83 win over Japan in the finale, and then hammered Jordan 114-80 in the quarterfinals Wednesday. Following the latest victory at Aichi International Arena in Nagoya, Korean captain Lee Seoung-hyun said the team under Mazurs is just rounding into form. "I think it took us a while to get on the same page and start playing the brand of basketball the coach wanted," Lee said. "Along the way, the coach always respected us so much and allowed us to do our things. And we are finally executing his game plans. Our confidence is running high." Korea was in need of some confidence ahead of the Asian Games. It lost the first three games with Mazurs in char

The Korean men's national football team was delayed in getting to a recovery training session Wednesday after organizers of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games failed to provide an official bus, a Korean team official said. The team, which beat Qatar 4-0 in their first Pool D match the previous day, was scheduled to hold a post-match recovery session at a field in Handa, some 40 kilometers south of Nagoya, Japan, at 10:30 a.m. However, the team could not head to the training venue because the organizing committee had failed to send a designated vehicle to the team hotel. After several minutes of searching for an alternative bus, the team arrived at the venue at 10:50 a.m. This was not the first transportation mishap for the Korean football team here. On Tuesday, the team arrived at the stadium for its match against Qatar at Nagoya City Mizuho Park Rugby Field in Nagoya about 30 minutes later than scheduled after the driver of the team bus got lost on the way. The Qatari team also experienced a similar transportation problem. On Monday, head coach Lee Min-sung was a few minutes late for his pretour

The Korean women's volleyball team opened its Asian Games campaign with a 3-0 win over Hong Kong, Wednesday, led by an effective performance by captain Kang So-hwi. In the women's volleyball preliminary Pool D match at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at Park Arena Komaki in Komaki, just north of Nagoya, Japan, Korea defeated Hong Kong 3-0 (25-23, 25-12, 25-12). Captain Kang led Korea with a match-high 14 points, including two aces and one block, while middle blocker Lee Da-hyeong contributed with 12 points. Korea is grouped in Pool D with Hong Kong, Qatar and Vietnam, with the top two teams advancing to the quarterfinals. In another Pool D match held at the same venue, Vietnam routed Qatar 3-0. Korea held a commanding 75-24 advantage in attacks, as well as a 5-1 edge in blocks and a 10-3 lead in service winners. Korea gained an early advantage in the first set, extending its lead to 17-12 with two straight aces by Lee Da-hyeon, before closing out the set 25-23 with solid defense against Hong Kong's late attacks. The second set was also dominated by Korea, who took an 18-8 lead with seven strai

North Korea blew an early lead to fall to China 2-1 in their first match of the men's football tournament at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Wednesday. North Korea failed to make Choe Kuk's 27th-minute goal stand in their Group B match at Wave Stadium Kariya in Kariya, some 20 kilometers southeast of Nagoya. Zhang Yuning equalized for China in the 44th minute, and Wu Xi netted the go-ahead marker in the 68th minute. North Korea will next play the United Arab Emirates at 7 p.m. Sunday and will close out their group play against Iran at 2:30 p.m. next Wednesday. Both matches will be at the Kariya venue. Coached by Ri Kwang-chon, the North Koreans are trying to win their first Asian Games men's football medal since grabbing silver behind the host South Korea in 2014 in Incheon. North Korea struck the crossbar twice in the second half — Cho Ryong-il in the 57th minute and Paek Chung-song in the 82nd minute. They outshot China 19-10 and enjoyed a 65-35 advantage in possession in the losing cause. The two best teams from each of the four groups in men's football will move on to the quarterfin