World's first livestream from a whiskey barrel

Top seed Alexander Zverev fell to a relentless Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals on Saturday over three tense sets. Davidovich Fokina, ranked world No 26, fought back to win 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 and will play fellow Spaniard Rafael Jodar in the final on Sunday. The 20-year-old Jodar beat fifth-seed Daniil Medvedev, a decade his senior, 6-3, 6-4 to deny the Russian former world No 1 a chance to return to the championship match he won in 2019. Jodar, ranked 13th, started the...

New Zealand coach Dave Rennie said his team would be ⁠sticking to their expansive ⁠style at next year’s World Cup after ⁠the All Blacks thrashed the Wallabies for a second successive week with some sensational attacking rugby on Saturday. Two convincing wins over Australia have got the New Zealanders back to winning ways after they lost a four-match series against South Africa 3-1. Hong Kong will face both sides when they make their Rugby World Cup debut next year, playing hosts Australia in the...

New York have barely stopped celebrating their first NBA title in 53 years, and the Knicks are already chasing a repeat in a league that is built to stop one. The NBA has crowned a record eight different champions in the past eight seasons. Rules that make it tougher to ‌stack a roster with superstars have turned the league into a free-for-all. The Knicks, however, have a big edge: the band is back together. New York return their five best players – Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, OG...

Ka Ying Rising’s record winning streak came to an end in dramatic style in the world’s richest turf race on Saturday after the Hong Kong champion’s agonisingly close defeat in the Group One The Everest (1,200m) at Randwick. Bidding to win the A$20 million (HK$109.17 million) race for the second straight year, the David Hayes-trained galloper ran on strongly from midfield but fell half a neck short of Temped in second. Ka Ying Rising was caught wide from barrier 11 under Zac Purton and could not...

Alex Fong Lik-sun will have to battle jellyfish, unpredictable weather, and some unknowns of the deep when he dives into the sea next month for his latest charity challenge. The Olympian-turned-pop star has set his sights on a 35-kilometre cruise from one of Hong Kong’s outlying islands to Macau, in the hope of raising HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) on behalf of InspiringHK Sports Foundation. Fong will start his attempt to cross the Zhujiang River Estuary from Peaked Hill on Lantau Island at 5am...

Former Olympic champion Mima Ito has been dropped from Japan’s latest national table tennis squad, replaced by 28-year-old breakthrough player Hitomi Sato, who finished runner-up at the recent WTT China Smash. Across the border, meanwhile, followers of rival powerhouses China have focused their attention on widely circulated Chinese media reports that the Japan Table Tennis Association plans to dismantle the high-profile mixed-doubles pairing of Sora Matsushima and Miwa Harimoto. Under the...

Golf’s Asian Tour has postponed the Saudi International indefinitely and cycling’s Urban World Championships have been cancelled following a deadly attack on Riyadh, although local organisers said next year’s Asian Cup football tournament remained on track. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement claimed ‌responsibility for Saturday’s strike on Riyadh’s international airport that killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 300. The Urban Cycling World Championships had been scheduled for...

Hong Kong will host a World Fencing League event next year, bringing the sport’s best and brightest to the city for one day in April, sources have told the South China Morning Post. The brainchild of 2016 US Olympic team foil bronze medallist Miles Chamley-Watson, WFL staged its inaugural event in Los Angeles earlier this year, and featured the likes of Hong Kong’s Ryan Choi Chun-yin, who captained Team Shield. Sources said the league was being pencilled in for the penultimate week of April, a...

Chad Schofield rates Ka Ying Rising “probably one of the best we’ve ever seen”, but the former Hong Kong-based jockey is confident his The Everest mount Tempted has what it takes to beat the world’s best galloper at Randwick on Saturday. Hong Kong champion Ka Ying Rising chases a 22nd straight victory in the world’s richest turf race, but a rain-affected track and Tempted’s hot form has boosted Schofield’s confidence. Since running second to Ka Ying Rising in The Everest (1,200m) 12 months ago,...

The 0.1 second that stood between Yvette Kong Man-yi and qualifying for the 2012 Olympics was “unbearable”, the Hong Kong swimmer writes in her newly published memoir, The Unmeasured Human. It was, the 33-year-old recalls years later, “too small to feel and too large to survive unchanged”. Fourteen years on, Kong is grateful for the heartbreaking experience, telling the South China Morning Post that “challenge is fundamental to human growth and spirit”. “I needed to find the courage to try again...

After their season was torched by “the biggest crash in SailGP history”, New Zealand’s Black Foils team are already plotting to use Hong Kong as the launch pad for a historic and redemptive 2027 season. Despite boasting the Olympic gold medal and multiple America’s Cup-winning pair of Blair Tuke and Pete Burling as crew mainstays and co-CEOs, the Kiwi boat is still waiting for its first SailGP title. The 10½-month championship features 13 race weekends, where 13 identical F50 catamarans – up to...

Hyrox has warned fans that a group calling itself the Hyrox Association of Macau is not part of the global fitness brand and has no authority to run races in the city. The rapidly growing company said it had already taken official steps to stop the upstart organisation from copying it. According to local media, the new group hosted a dinner on Tuesday in the casino hub to mark its official launch, during which it reportedly unveiled plans for an inaugural “Macau Fitness Run Challenge” at the...