Heading for Ferrari’s Home Race, Leclerc Still Dreams of World Title

Any concerns over Manchester City's capacity to challenge Arsenal for the Premier League title early in the post-Pep Guardiola era might have disappeared.

That's what back-to-back wins and spending $400 million on new players in two weeks can do for a team.

City is back in a good place, it seems, at the end of a transfer window where the club had a bigger expenditure than anyone else in Europe. Deadline-day signings of Enzo Fernandez and Iliman Ndiaye took its overall summer outlay to more than $600 million.

Over the past week, City has also bought Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi and Brazilian winger Allan — for a combined cost of $160 million — essentially as backups.

It leaves City manager Enzo Maresca suddenly with a strong, deep squad and therefore plenty of selection dilemmas for the home match against Coventry on Saturday.

Maresca started the season playing Marc Guehi — a center back — in center midfield, such were his shortage of options there after City sold or released a slew of midfielders such as Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Tijjani Reijnders and hadn't replaced them.

Now he has to pick two of Elliot Anderson, Fernandez or Bouaddi to play behind in-form playmaker Rayan Cherki. And on the wing, Ndiaye and Allan will provide competition for senior players Phil Foden, Antoine Semenyo and Jeremy Doku.

You fear for Coventry, a promoted team which has already traveled to Arsenal and was fortunate to lose only 3-0.

City has opened the season with a 2-1 win over Bournemouth and a 4-1 win at Crystal Palace. The first couple of weeks might have been the best time to play City with its incomplete squad, new manager settling in and players not fully fit after the World Cup. Let's not forget the Community Shield, where City's performance was tepid in a 3-0 loss to Arsenal.

This weekend onward is the time to really start judging Maresca and this refurbished City team.

Key matchups

The standout fixture sees defending champion Arsenal host Chelsea on Sunday in a match between two of the four teams on a maximum six points. Arsenal has looked typically stingy at the back — it has yet to concede a goal — while Chelsea is the joint top scorer with seven goals, so something has to give.

Aside from City, promoted Hull is the other team with two wins from two and next hosts Aston Villa, which has zero points.

After back-to-back draws, Liverpool will look for its first win of the season at promoted Ipswich on Friday.

Players to watch

This is the first chance to see some of the top signings in the transfer window in action.

Among them is Bradley Barcola, who could make his debut — possibly off the bench — for Liverpool after his $166 million move from Paris Saint-Germain. He hadn't made an appearance for PSG this season with uncertainty over his future.

Jack Grealish is back on loan at Everton and might be thrown straight in against Manchester United with Ndiaye no longer around.

Off the field

Watch out for possible protesting by Everton fans unhappy at the American-owned club's activity in the summer transfer market that saw not only its best attacker, Ndiaye, leave but also its backup striker Beto depart without being replaced.

With deadline-day bids for Folarin Balogun and Joshua Zirkzee failing, Everton has been left with just one senior striker — Thierno Barry.

Everton's fan advisory board issued a statement to reflect the “serious concerns” expressed by supporters regarding the club's handling of the transfer window and argue the squad is in a weaker state than it was at the start.

“The gap between ambition and execution is now impossible to ignore, and it has damaged confidence in the planning, leadership and alignment of football operations,” the fan group said. “Supporters deserve clarity, accountability and evidence that lessons have been learned before further trust can be rebuilt.”

The Texas-based Friedkin Group is starting its second full season as Everton's owner.

Aryna Sabalenka came to the US Open struggling and in danger of losing the No. 1 ranking.

She heads to the third round looking every bit ready for a three-peat.

The top-seeded Sabalenka overwhelmed Polina Iatcenko 6-1, 6-1 in 53 minutes on Wednesday night, putting on a power-hitting display that made it seem her recent problems are in the past, The Associated Press said.

“Happy with the level I played today, happy with the focus and happy to be through this match,” Sabalenka said.

A number of players have only finished one match.

Another rainy afternoon in New York suspended play for a time on outside courts, allowing action only under the roofs in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium to continue uninterrupted. So the players scheduled there avoided the starts and stops that others faced.

Carlos Alcaraz was one, following Sabalenka with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jaime Faria. The defending champion rebounded after dropping a set, which he didn't do until last year's final, by winning the next eight games to seize control.

Jessica Pegula needed only 56 minutes to defeat Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1. Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, beat Venus Williams in her first match.

“To be out of there in under an hour, it doesn’t always happen,” Pegula said. “So I think I’m just going to take that one and run, I guess, until the next round.”

No. 8 seed Ben Shelton followed Pegula on Ashe and beat Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5, while No. 7 Daniil Medvedev raced past Sebastian Gorzny — except for a brief delay to protest the chair umpire’s decision to replay a point when two birds sat on the net — 6-3, 6-3, 7-5.

Sabalenka says she was struggling but now feels better

Sabalenka is trying to become the first player to win three in a row in Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams from 2012-14, but arrived after losing in the fourth round of her past three tournaments. She needs help to stay atop the WTA rankings even if she wins the title.

She won 15 of 16 points on first serve in the first set and only dropped off a little in the second, finishing 21 for 28 in the match, against an opponent who is playing in her first Grand Slam tournament.

“I think I struggled a little bit in the middle of the season. Once again, I’m not going to defend myself or explain why, what happened, but I’m happy with my level,” Sabalenka said. “I can definitely say that mentally I’m way stronger than I was in the middle of the season, and physically I also feel stronger. So I feel like I’m on my level of play.”

A three-day first round stretches into a fourth

When the US Open switched to a Sunday start last year, it spread out the first round over the first three days, so Wednesday would have arrived with everyone playing in the second round had the weather cooperated.

It didn't.

Alex de Minaur, the No. 6 seed from Australia, said with all the juggling his match was moved twice from the court where he was originally scheduled. He finally started his US Open on Wednesday on Court 11 and beat Italy's Andrea Guerrieri 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.

“It’s been a couple tough days. But I mean, these tournaments, it's all about adapting and that’s the name of the game,” de Minaur said. “There’s too much to play for to let something like this affect you.”

Paula Badosa said she didn't even know how to prepare for the resumption of her match against Daria Kasatkina, which was halted Tuesday with her one game from winning to set up a second-round match against No. 4 Coco Gauff.

“I didn’t know if I was going to play just two points or six, or I don’t know how much, how many I play or one more set,” the Spaniard said Wednesday after finishing off her 6-1, 6-4 victory.

“So I knew that if I was winning this match, I’m playing the next day. So, yeah, it was everything a bit different. I was very nervous that I even couldn’t eat, so a lot of different stuff I did today, but sometimes it is how it is, and I tried to play with the things I had there.”

At least she got through. No. 12 Rafael Jodar, the 19-year-old from Spain who came in after a strong summer, was routed 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 by Bu Yunchaokete of China when his first-round match was finally completed.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because I was waiting a lot yesterday and today as well, but it is what it is,” Jodar said. “We cannot control the rain, so it’s difficult for both players.”

The first round was finally completed late Wednesday, a day when 25 men’s singles matches were scheduled to get the tournament back on track.

Alex Michelsen pulled off an upset in one of them by ousting fellow American Brandon Nakashima, the No. 16 seed, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. No. 11 Frances Tiafoe beat Japanese qualifier Rei Sakamoto in straight sets, and Argentina's Mariano Navone backed up his upset of Novak Djokovic by beating Matteo Berrettini 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (4).

Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova and runner-up Karolina Muchova advanced to the third round, while No. 11 Marta Kostyuk got past 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens 6-1, 7-5. No. 31 seed Leylah Fernandez set up a matchup of past US Open runners-up against Pegula, with the winner to meet either No. 16 Sorana Cirstea or No. 19 Jasmine Paolini.

World number three ‌Carlos Alcaraz said he plans to take more breaks from the tour and warned that the packed tennis calendar is contributing to injuries and fatigue among players.

The Spaniard, who returned to action at the US Open after a lengthy layoff due to a wrist injury sustained in April, said the demands of the schedule made it impossible for players to compete in every major event without risking burnout, Reuters said.

"I took more than ‌I wanted ‌but seeing how tight is the calendar, I ‌don't ⁠want to have ⁠this break because of an injury," Alcaraz told reporters after beating Jaime Faria 4-6 6-0 6-3 6-2 on Wednesday.

"In the future, I'm going to take some long breaks. Maybe not four months, but one month, two months, missing some tournaments, because it's impossible to ⁠play them all."

Since 2025, seven of the ‌nine ATP Masters 1000 ‌events have been expanded to 12 days, with only Monte Carlo ‌and Paris retaining their traditional one-week formats.

The ATP ‌has said players control their own schedules and it is working to encourage an appropriate number of matches during the season.

"They are adding more important tournaments. In a way ‌they are making us play," he said.

"You can say no and decide your calendar, ⁠but there ⁠are some Masters 1000s, some Grand Slams, and we are out playing 40 weeks if we have to play every mandatory tournament that the ATP requires us to play."

Alcaraz pointed to a growing injury toll on the tour, with Jannik Sinner, Jack Draper, Holger Rune and Joao Fonseca among players who missed this year's US Open.

"We are seeing a lot of players getting injured and tired. If they don't do anything about it, we are going to see even more in the future," he added.

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