Sports briefs 8/26
High school football
The season-opening football game between Ringgold and Trinity will be played Friday night at Hiller Field. Kickoff is 7 p.m.
The game had originally been scheduled for Ringgold’s Joe Montana Stadium and was put on some schedules that way, but the site was changed during the summer.
It is a non-conference game matching former Big Six Conference rivals.
Tennis
Serena Williams made a triumphant return to the U.S. Open. She won in mixed doubles alongside Carlos Alcaraz, the defending singles champion who shook off the rust from missing four months with a wrist injury to keep pace with his playing partner. Williams and Alcaraz rebounded from a slow start to defeat Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool 5-3, 4-1 in the first round, much to the delight of fans inside Arthur Ashe Stadium who were clearly on their side.
It was Williams’ first U.S. Open match since 2022 and Alcaraz’s first of any kind since mid-April.
Robot sets 100-meter sprint record
A Chinese humanoid robot set a new 100-meter sprint record of 8.86 seconds in Beijing on Tuesday, beating its robot competitors and the fastest recorded human time.
The race was part of China’s World Humanoid Robot Games, an Olympic-style competition now in its second year.
The previous robot record of 9.39 seconds had been set just three days earlier, on Saturday.
For comparison, the men’s 100-meter world record is 9.58 seconds, set by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in 2009.
The record-breaking robot fell after hitting the finish line, a padded barrier, with sparks flying from its waist.
Baseball
The St. Louis Cardinals put shortstop Masyn Winn on the 10-day injured list with a broken left thumb.
Winn was injured on a slide into second base against Cincinnati last week. He has been out of the lineup for the past four games, although he played defense without an at-bat in a loss at Philadelphia on Friday.
His placement on the IL is retroactive to Saturday.
Winn is the reigning NL Gold Glove winner at shortstop. He’s batting .238 with five homers and 51 RBI and leads the league with 317 assists and 86 double plays turned.
College football
Duke is turning to San Jose State graduate transfer Walker Eget as its starting quarterback.
The Blue Devils announced Eget had won the starting job on Tuesday, coming with less than two weeks until the Sept. 5 opener against Tulane at home. He won a position battle that had redshirt freshman Dan Mahan mentioned as a top contender going into preseason camp.
College baseball
The Automated Ball/Strike system has been approved for use next season in all divisions of college baseball, the NCAA announced Tuesday.
The Division I Baseball Oversight Committee and the Division II and Division III Playing Rules Oversight Panel recently voted to give teams the option, when available, of implementing a system to challenge called balls and strikes in regular-season and postseason games.
The Southeastern Conference experimented with a system allowing batters, catchers and pitchers to challenge ball and strike calls during its conference tournament in May, and the rule will go nationwide on an experimental basis.
The use of 18-inch square bases for next season will be permitted at all facilities in all three divisions, while 15-inch square bases remain the standard. A double first base will be required for all games.
In Division I only, a 30-second timer will be used between batters, as well as during mound visits and offensive timeouts.