Jamie Murray missed out on the chance to claim the doubles world number one spot after losing in the quarter-finals at Indian Wells, while there is a hat-trick of medals for Great Britain on day one of the Dubai diving World Series. Here’s our review of the last 24 hours.
Jamie Murray admits the prospect of becoming world number one had crossed his mind at times during his and Bruno Soares BNP Paribas Open defeat in Indian Wells.
The duo, winners of the Australian Open men’s doubles title at the start of the year, were beaten 6-7 7-6 10-8 by Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez.
Doubles players are ranking individually, with Murray looking to overtakes Soares’ fellow Brazilian Marcelo Melo. The latter will have to reach at least the semi-finals in Miami, which starts next Wednesday, to deny Murray top spot.
"It didn't happen today, but next week we'll go again," said Murray.
"I was aware of it. People write about it so you hear about it.
"It probably came into my head a couple of times. I guess that's difficult to block that out.
“It's not every day you get the chance to reach the top in your sport and for me it was a huge match."
Tom Daley admitted winning 10m platform silver alongside Dan Goodfellow at the Dubai World Series was an encouraging result after a week disrupted by injury and illness.
The duo, who won bronze together in Beijing last week, had been unable to train in recent days due to illness, while both have also been suffering with various injuries.
But they put their disrupted preparations to one side to climb the podium once again following a score of 428.91.
“It feels good considering we haven’t had the chance to train this week as I’ve been sick owing to illness,” said Daley.
“I’ve had a bad back, a bad neck and Dan’s had a bad hamstring. The odds have been against us so we’ve somehow managed to pull it off on the day.” Read more here.
Victoria Pendleton has always been a different type of athlete. Driven but not afraid of admitting her frailties, searingly honest, even when it’s got her in trouble.
In the build-up to the London Olympics she admitted that she dreaded the pressure and the expectation.
“When your heart’s going to beat out your chest and the crowd are making so much noise you can’t hear yourself think. At what point does that ever become enjoyable?” she said.
Quite how Pendleton’s going to feel at 4pm this afternoon, when she goes to post in the St James’s Palace Foxhunter Chase, the amateur riders’ Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival, is therefore anyone’s guess. Read more here.
Liam Pitchford intends to keep his standards high when he opens the defence of his title at the table tennis National Championships this weekend.
The five-time Commonwealth medallist has enjoyed a successful run of form of late, including helping the England Leopards win bronze at the World Team Championships in Malaysia.
And he arrives in Hatfield on Friday for the National Championships looking to once again be on the medal rostrum.
"It's not as important as winning the medal at the Worlds, but it's the biggest English tournament and I've won it three times in a row, so I want to make it four," he told Table Tennis England.
"I can't really complain about how I'm playing and I'm always confident, but you never know who's going to play well.
“You've got to get yourself up for the first match and when it comes to the later stages hopefully I'll still be playing and get a chance to play on TV."
He might be longing to fly under the radar all the way to Rio 2016, but with that not being an option Will Satch insists nothing will stand in his way as he bids for Olympic gold.
Satch’s first full season in the GB Rowing Team ranks arrived in 2012 and ended with him and his new-looking pairing with George Nash winning a bronze medal in the pair at the London Olympics.
Satch has now joined the men’s eight team that has won World Championship gold in each of the last three years, as well as a European bronze and silver in 2014 and 2015 respectively, and knows he has a target on his back should he make it to Rio following next week’s Olympic trials.
“I was the underdog before, I went to London but I came in very last minute,” he said.
“It’s a different platform for me now, we’re on the pedestal and we’ve got people biting our toes, whereas before I was the underdog coming up. I actually preferred being in that situation.” Read more here.
Sportsbeat 2016