Emma Raducanu to miss French Open, Wimbledon, out 'next few ...

Emma Raducanu, who won the 2021 U.S. Open as an 18-year-old qualifier, said she will be out for “the next few months” due to surgeries on both hands and an ankle.

The Brit is in line to miss the French Open, which starts May 28, as well as Wimbledon, which starts July 3. Raducanu said she will “miss the summer events,” which could mean her absence will extend through the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 28.

“It is safe to say the last 10 months have been difficult as I dealt with a recurring injury on a bone of both hands,” she posted. “I tried my best to manage the pain and play through it for most of this year and end of last year by reducing practice load dramatically, missing weeks of training as well as cutting last season short to try heal it. Unfortunately it’s not enough.”

Raducanu called each of the three surgeries a “minor procedure.” She posted a picture of one of her arms in a wrap, indicating that the second hand surgery hasn’t happened yet. She also said that the ankle surgery was still to come.

Raducanu is ranked 85th in the world, down from a career high of 10th last July.

She went 4-5 in five majors since the 2021 U.S. Open, where she became the first person in the Open Era (since 1968) to win a Grand Slam singles title by going through qualifying. She didn’t drop a set in 10 matches.

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Romanian swimmer David Popovici donated one of his 2022 World Championships gold medals, having it melted to benefit children with cancer.

In a video featuring Popovici from the Romanian medical laboratory company MedLife, the ribbon is cut off a 2022 World Championships gold medal. The medal is then dipped into a machine that melts it.

The medal is being cut into more than 100 gold bows — a symbol of the fight against childhood cancer — that will be given to children who beat cancer, according to MedLife.

“Hope is immune to cancer,” the 18-year-old Popovici shared in an Instagram post.

The medal is Popovici’s gold from the 200m freestyle, according to MedLife. In that race, Popovici won in 1 minute, 43.21 seconds, the world’s best time in 10 years. He became the first Romanian man to win a world title and the youngest male gold medalist from any nation in 15 years.

Two days later, Popovici won the 100m free, becoming the first swimmer to sweep the 100m and 200m frees at a worlds since the very first edition in 1973. Two months later, he broke a 13-year-old world record in the 100m free, becoming the youngest male swimmer to break an individual world record since Michael Phelps.

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Tamyra Mensah-Stock, who in Tokyo became the first Black U.S. woman to win an Olympic wrestling title, said she retired from competitive wrestling and signed with the WWE.

“I feel like I have done everything that I can in Olympic wrestling,” she told ESPN. “I’ve got the gold medal. I’m a multiple world champion, and I’ve been in it for 15 years, and I’ve had an incredible journey.”

Mensah-Stock signaled at least a temporary break from the sport last month when she declined her spot in June’s Final X, which determines the team for September’s world championships.

Mensah-Stock said in an interview shortly after winning her Olympic gold medal that she wanted to pursue WWE.

After the Tokyo Games and the October 2021 World Championships (where she won bronze coming off COVID and a back injury), she took eight months off and had thoughts of quitting wrestling.

She returned in dominant fashion in 2022, winning her second world title in the 68kg division.

She routed her four opponents by a combined 36-0 over the two-day competition in Belgrade. Every match ended early via pin or mercy rule (a 10-point lead). She pinned Japan’s Ami Ishii at the 2-minute, 11-second mark of a six-minute regulation final on Sept. 15, her most recent competitive match.

“I wiped the floor with everybody, and I was like, man, this is not fun anymore. I need a change,” Mensah-Stock said. “Something in the back of my head that’s just been itching at me, a dream of mine for I don’t know how long. I just wanted to be in the WWE.”

The U.S. team for this September’s worlds in Belgrade will be determined at June’s Final X with head-to-head matchups in each of the 30 weight classes among women’s freestyle, men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman.

Mensah-Stock’s absence could shake up U.S. women’s wrestling, which is deep at 76kg, the weight class directly above Mensah-Stock’s 68kg.

Kennedy Blades, who at age 17 was runner-up to Mensah-Stock at the Tokyo Olympic Trials, since moved up to 76kg.

Adeline Gray, a six-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist, returned from childbirth to compete at last week’s U.S. Open at 76kg, a division she owned domestically for nearly a decade. She lost to Blades in the U.S. Open final.

Amit Elor, who was born Jan. 1, 2004, won last year’s world title at 72kg to become the youngest U.S. wrestler to win an Olympic or world title. Since 72kg is not an Olympic weight, Elor must move down to 68kg or up to 76kg by next year.

Kylie Welker was runner-up to Gray at 76kg at Olympic Trials at 17 years old, then won the world junior title in August 2021.

Mensah-Stock is the latest Olympian to join WWE. Past gold medalists to do so include Kurt Angle (1996) and Gable Steveson (2021), who unretired at the U.S. Open and bids for the 2024 Paris Games.

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