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• Emma Raducanu to make comeback from injury at Auckland event in January

  Emma Raducanu will make her comeback at the ASB Classic in Auckland next month.

  The 21-year-old has not played a match since a heavy loss to Jelena Ostapenko in Stuttgart in April. She subsequently withdrew from the Madrid Open and opted to undergo surgery on both wrists and one ankle.

  Having initially targeted a comeback in late summer or early autumn, Raducanu has ended up missing the rest of the 2023 season.

  Until recently there were doubts over whether she would make the start of next year but those have eased in recent weeks as she has stepped up her training.

  And it has now been announced she will play at the WTA tournament in New Zealand beginning on January 1.

  It will be Raducanu’s second appearance in Auckland and she will hope it is more positive than her debut in January, when she suffered an ankle injury during her second-round match and retired in tears.

  The former US Open champion was able to recover to compete at the Australian Open but opted to undergo a procedure on her ankle to repair the damage in the spring.

   

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  She criticised the “slippery” courts afterwards but has decided to accept a wild card to return.

  Raducanu’s ranking has slipped to 296 and she faces a long road back to the top of the game, but it should give her the opportunity to fill in some of the steps she missed out thanks to her giant leap to stardom.

  She can use a protected ranking of 103 to enter tournaments because of her long lay-off but that is currently not high enough to earn her a place in the main draw of the Australian Open.

  Barring enough withdrawals of higher-ranked players, or a wild card, she will have to go through qualifying at a slam for the first time since her stunning title run in New York in 2021.

  Reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff, former world number one Caroline Wozniacki and Wimbledon semi-finalist Elina Svitolina are among the other names confirmed for the Auckland tournament.

• Emma Raducanu faces Australian Open wait as Caroline Wozniacki handed wild card

  Former champion Caroline Wozniacki has been awarded a wild card for the Australian Open but Emma Raducanu has missed out on the initial batch.

  Raducanu has a protected ranking of 103 due to her lengthy absence from the tour following operations on both wrists and one ankle but that is not currently high enough to secure entry to next month’s grand slam tournament.

  The 21-year-old’s status as a former slam champion and one of the most high-profile female players in the sport counts in her favour but most wild cards usually go to home players.

  If Raducanu is not given a wild card, and there are not sufficient withdrawals among higher-ranked players to secure her place, she will have to go through qualifying – the avenue by which she sensationally triumphed at the US Open in 2021.

  The good news is, after doubts about the pace of her recovery, she has stepped up training in recent weeks and appears on track to return at the start of next season.

  Raducanu has not played a tournament since the WTA event in Stuttgart in April and her actual ranking has fallen to 296.

  That is 54 places lower than former world number one Wozniacki, who came out of retirement last summer following a three-and-a-half-year hiatus in which she had two children.

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  The Dane impressed, reaching the fourth round of the US Open, and she told The AO Show: “I have so many wonderful memories of Melbourne, and of course winning the Australian Open is an all-time career highlight.

  “Melbourne’s one of my most favourite cities in the world, and I can’t wait to share it with my family and my kids.”

  Wozniacki won her only slam title at Melbourne Park in 2018 before retiring at the same venue two years later.

  The other initial wild cards for the tournament, which begins on January 14, have gone to Australian trio Kimberly Birrell, Olivia Gadecki and Taylah Preston.

• New father Doncic exhausted after NBA-record run not enough for Mavs

  Luka Doncic said he was simply exhausted after the Dallas Mavericks failed to capitalise on an NBA-record 30-point run in Saturday's "rollercoaster" defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

  A depleted Mavericks side found themselves facing a 24-point deficit at one stage, but Doncic played a talismanic role to drag his team back into contention.

  Dallas took the lead with a 30-0 run in the fourth quarter, the best in the NBA in the PXP era (since 1996-97), which took them from 111-87 down to 117-111 up.

  Doncic finished with a game-high 36 points while also adding 15 rebounds and 18 assists, but his terrific performance wasn't enough as the Thunder rallied again for a 126-120 victory. 

  Having played his part in a thrilling contest one day after becoming a father for the first time on Friday, Doncic struggled to hide his fatigue.

  "It was the happiest day of my life with the baby, but then today's game was a big rollercoaster too," Doncic said after the game.

  "I'm so sad we didn't win this game, but man, we gave a big, big effort. I was a little bit exhausted."

  Doncic was frustrated by his finish to the game after committing two turnovers in the last 87 seconds, with the first the result of a travelling call which infuriated the four-time All-Star.

  "My view is it probably was a travel, but those travels happen about, in my opinion, 20 times a game," he said. 

  "So a minute and a half to go, if you're going to call that travel for the first time in the game… you can't do that. 

  "I don't think so. I think those travels happen a lot of times in one game and the NBA doesn't call the travels, so I was really surprised."

  The Mavericks are now 11-8 after suffering back-to-back defeats, and they will look to respond when they welcome the Utah Jazz to American Airlines Center on Wednesday.