BASKETBALL

Brittney Griner will be back in the WNBA this season, once again playing with the Phoenix Mercury.

Griner, who was a free agent, re-signed with the team Tuesday.

The 32-year-old Griner had said she would return to Phoenix in a social media post in December, after she returned home from her 10-month detainment in Russia. Griner had been arrested at an airport just outside of Moscow on drug possession charges a year ago and was brought home in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange in December.

The 6-foot-9 center last played for the Mercury in 2021 and helped the team reach the WNBA Finals. She averaged 20.5 points and 9.5 rebounds that season.
Griner, who was drafted No. 1 in 2013 by the Mercury, was listed Saturday on Phoenix’s roster on the WNBA website.

Since returning home from Russia, Griner has been out of the public spotlight, with the exception of appearances at the Super Bowl, the Phoenix Open and an MLK Day event in Phoenix, where she lives.

The WNBA has said it will address getting Griner special travel accommodations, such as charter flights, after she signed.

SOCCER

MLS: Major League Soccer is expanding its playoffs to include the nine top finishers from each of its two conferences, 62% of the league’s teams.

An opening “wild card” round will feature matches between the eighth- and ninth-seeded teams in the Eastern and Western conferences at the stadium of the higher seed.

The first round will be a best-of-three series, with the top finisher in each conference facing the winner of the wild-card match. The second seed will play the seventh, No. 3 will play No. 6 and No. 4 will play No. 5. The higher seed will host first, with the series moving to the lower seed for the second game, and then back to the higher seed’s home if necessary.

The conference semifinals, finals and MLS Cup championship will all be single games, hosted by the higher seed.

OBIT: Amancio Amaro, who helped Real Madrid win the European Cup and nine Spanish league titles in the 1960s and 70s, died. He was 83.

Real Madrid, where Amaro was an honorary president, announced the news without giving a cause of death. It called Amaro “one of the greatest legends of our club and of world football. Always an example for Real Madrid and for the whole sporting world.”

GOLF

SOLHEIM CUP: Suzann Pettersen will captain Europe at the next two Solheim Cups.

The Norwegian was selected to lead the team for the 2024 event at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia, having already been appointed as captain for this year’s Solheim Cup at Finca Cortesin in Spain from Sept. 22-24.

DOPING

RUSSIA: The World Anti-Doping Agency has appealed Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s doping case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and said it is seeking a four-year ban.

WADA is objecting to a finding by a Russian tribunal that Valieva bore “no fault or negligence” in the case, which overshadowed last year’s Beijing Olympics.

WADA wants a four-year ban and for Valieva’s results to be disqualified from the date she gave the sample, Dec. 25, 2021. That would include the Olympics.

The Russian skater, who was then 15, won Olympic gold in the team competition in February before it was announced that a sample she gave two months before tested positive for a banned substance. The result was reported later because the laboratory which tested the sample was affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
No medal ceremony has taken place for the team competition because of the uncertainty.

AUTO RACING

FORMULA ONE: Formula Two champion Felipe Drugovich will drive for Aston Martin in place of the injured Lance Stroll when Formula One testing begins Thursday.

Aston Martin said Drugovich will start testing in the morning session Thursday in Bahrain before Stroll’s teammate, Fernando Alonso, takes over for the afternoon. The schedule for Friday and Saturday was “to be confirmed,” the team added.

Drugovich is one of two reserve drivers at Aston Martin, along with former McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne.