Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from the Cincinnati Open as he continues to recover from a wrist injury.

The world number two has not played since he pulled out of the Barcelona Open in April, missing Wimbledon and the chance to defend his French Open title.

After winning the event in 2025, Spain’s Alcaraz was due to return at the Cincinnati Open as part of preparations for his defence of the US Open, which begins on 30 August.

Instead, the organisers of the Ohio event – which starts on 11 August – said that “an ongoing wrist injury” will prevent the 23-year-old from taking part.

“We know Carlos is doing everything he can to get back to playing tournaments as soon as possible,” said tournament director Bob Moran.

“We wish him the best with his recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to Cincinnati in the future.”

Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser took the first yellow jersey of her career by winning a 21km time trial from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon in the fourth stage of the Tour de France Femmes.

The time trial world champion, 34, completed the course in 27 minutes and 30 seconds, ending the day with a 14-second lead over Demi Vollering after the Dutchwoman was third in the trial.

Reusser beat Netherlands rider Lieke Nooijen’s formidable target by four seconds, while 21-year-old Briton Zoe Backstedt, a junior world champion in this discipline, was 20 seconds behind the leader and finished fourth in the only time trial of her debut tour.

Having started the day in yellow, Norway’s Sigrid Haugset struggled after Monday’s stunning solo breakaway and is now fourth overall after finishing three minutes behind Reusser.

As riders withstood temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius in eastern France, defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot also struggled and the French native lost two minutes and 14 seconds to Reusser.

Reusser, a favourite to win the time trial, admitted that she and her team had been eyeing up this fourth stage for a while.

“Of course, I’m super, super happy,” she said.

Advertisement

“This was the idea that we had since a long time – my goal of the year.

“I knew we were going to start in Switzerland on the Swiss national day, and we’re going to have a time trial as the fourth day.

“We’ve been talking about it for a long time, Project Dijon, for the yellow colour of the mustard! To win the time trial and maybe take yellow. It worked out.

“Always it’s hard and you know it’s not necessarily going to happen so, that it happened like this? Super happy!”

Coventry City have signed 25-year-old goalkeeper Carl Rushworth from Brighton & Hove Albion following his successful loan at the CBS Arena.

The deal is reportedly worth a club record £22m but neither club has made the fee public, nor has the length of his “long-term contract” been revealed.

Rushworth played in all 46 of Coventry’s league games last season, keeping 17 clean sheets as they won the Championship to end their 25-year wait to return to the Premier League.

“I’m really happy, there’s so many emotions that I’ve got,” said Rushworth.

“There’s excitement, I can finally relax knowing it’s done and that I’m back with the boys and at a club I loved being at.”

Rushworth never made a senior appearance for Brighton and experienced six different loans over seven years having signed from hometown club Halifax Town in 2019.

“It’s great to have Carl back with us on a permanent basis,” said manager Frank Lampard.

Advertisement

“He’s a top professional, a great character and he had a huge impact on the team to help us get promoted last season.”