Sports

10:36 AM ET D’Arcy MaineESPN.com Earlier this month, tennis player Peng Shuai accused Zhang Gaoli, a former high-ranking Chinese government official, of sexual assault. Peng wrote, in a lengthy social media post, that Zhang had forced her to have sex despite repeated refusals. The post was removed within 20 minutes from her verified account on

11:02 AM ET Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR will return practice and qualifying to its weekend schedule for all three national series in 2022 after the on-track activity had been mostly scrapped the past two seasons amid the coronavirus pandemic. NASCAR traditionally hosted three-day weekends for its races but dropped all qualifying and practice

7:00 AM ET Every Tuesday as the College Football Playoff rankings are released, one virtually unprecedented decision has stood out: where Oregon has been placed. The Ducks sit at No. 3 in the current rankings, an honor bestowed upon them seemingly for a win over Ohio State, and one that presumably puts them in strong

7:00 AM ET We’ve been heading in this direction over the past decade, but it’s now official: The Most Valuable Player Award has become, to the delight of analytics aficionados across baseball land, the best player in the league award. Traditionally, the writers based MVP honors on some sort of undefined fusion of on-field performance

8:00 AM ET I don’t care if the Seattle Kraken are good or bad. I only care that they’re weird. The Vegas Golden Knights warped our expectations for how an NHL expansion team should perform in its first season, having leveraged the league’s new advantageous draft rules to maximum compensatory effect. None of us figured

3:02 PM ET D’Arcy MaineESPN.com Serena Williams is still haunted by her experience at Indian Wells in 2001 and the mental anguish that she says she endured when returning to the event in 2015 after a lengthy boycott. “Even when I went back 14 years later, it was very traumatizing,” Williams said in an interview

8:22 AM ET Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson will represent the United States in the upcoming international Race of Champions, an event he won with Jeff Gordon in 2002. Johnson will compete in the event scheduled Feb. 4-6 in Pite Havsbad, Sweden for the “Champion of Champions” title in the

10:23 PM ET Depending on ones perspective, there are several ways to frame the United States’ 1-1 draw with Jamaica in World Cup qualifying in Kingston on Tuesday. It was disappointing in that the USMNT failed to build off the momentum it generated with a tantalizing 2-0 win against Mexico on Friday. That’s the vibe

12:49 PM ET UFC welterweight contender Leon Edwards says he wasn’t surprised by Jorge Masvidal‘s recent withdrawal from their scheduled fight at UFC 269 next month, and he has now turned his entire focus to a title fight against Kamaru Usman in 2022. Edwards, of England, told ESPN he’d heard some concerning things about Masvidal’s

7:58 AM ET Mike Coppinger Ben Baby Close ESPN Staff Writer ESPN Staff Writer Previously a college football writer for The Dallas Morning News University of North Texas graduate Terence Crawford defends his WBO welterweight championship against Shawn Porter on Saturday (ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET), and Crawford, ESPN’s No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter, has a

6:57 PM ET Associated Press PHOENIX — Phil Mickelson birdied three of the final holes Sunday to win the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship, and Bernhard Langer held on to win his sixth PGA Tour Champions season points title. Mickelson shot a 6-under 65 at Phoenix Country Club, getting up-and-down from short of the par-5

9:41 PM GMT There was barely any danger of the Wallabies’ hoodoo ending at Twickenham on Saturday. If Australia losing to Eddie Jones’ England felt familiar before, the visitors will leave London thinking it is almost grimly inevitable. As victories go, this was straightforward for England in a slippery match where errors from both sides

3:17 PM ET Associated Press ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The head of the women’s professional tennis tour called for a full investigation of sexual assault allegations made by a two-time Grand Slam doubles champion from China against a former top government official in that country. Earlier this month, Peng Shuai, a former No. 1-ranked doubles

9:37 PM ET Philadelphia 76ers top assistant coach Dave Joerger is leaving the team for several weeks to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments for a form of “head and neck” cancer, Joerger told ESPN. Joerger, 47, has undergone treatments while coaching for the past two weeks — missing only one road game — but the

6:00 AM ET All but four teams are on the outside looking in at the College Football Playoff right now. Fortunately for them, the clock has not run out. There’s a path for many teams to break through — though for some it’s much less likely to happen than for others. Still, a path is

7:00 AM ET ESPN staff The Week 10 NFL schedule for the 2021 season is stacked with great matchups, and we’ve got you covered with what you need to know heading into the weekend. Our NFL Nation reporters bring us the biggest keys to every game, a bold prediction for each matchup and, of course,

9:00 AM ET When the Buffalo Sabres finally traded Jack Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights last week, it didn’t just mark the end of the NHL’s most contentious standoff — it marked the end of an era. The Sabres literally ruined themselves for the chance to draft Jack Eichel in 2015. (Or Connor McDavid

4:44 PM ET ESPN News Services CARLSBAD, Calif. — Baseball’s most influential agent said the sport was the victim of a “competitive cancer” caused by teams unloading veterans to accumulate draft picks, and that the Atlanta Braves‘ World Series title was a direct result of tanking. In an outdoor news conference in front of a

2:00 PM ET Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. — All samples collected from horses competing in the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar have tested clear. The Kenneth L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory at UC Davis announced the results Thursday. All horses competing in the world championships last weekend were tested for total carbon dioxide levels

9:48 AM ET Associated Press The nascent Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority on Thursday released a draft of proposed anti-doping and medication control rules designed to bring uniformity to a sport that has operated for years under patchwork regulations in 38 racing states. Since July, HISA has been working with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to