FOOTBALL-Lionel Messi shows off new haircut as he gears up for the new La Liga season after a tough summer

 

Lionel Messi hasn't enjoyed the best of summers. He was part of the Argentina side that lost in the Copa America final for the second consecutive year while Cristiano Ronaldo won Euro 2016 with Portugal - and now he's plumped for a quite loud haircut.

The Barcelona star's new look was revealed by his wife Antonella on her Instagram page and unsurprisingly the reaction was mixed.

Rather than stick with his natural hair colour of brown, as he has done for the majority of his decorated career, the 29-year-old decided to bleach his hair blonde.

Antonella used the caption '#blondeboy' yet she probably didn't expect such a high number of his adorning fans who certainly weren't as impressed as she was.

The common comparison to made was with Arsenal and Wales midfielder Aaron Ramsey who sported a similar hairstyle at Euro 2016. Others likened him more to Manchester United's Phil Jones or Manchester City's Samir Nasri.

Messi has been on holiday with his family after being granted extended leave by Barcelona following the Copa America in the United States.

It proved to be a difficult tournament for him as he reached the final with Argentina only to lose to Chile 4-2 on penalties. He announced his international retirement following that defeat.

 

He was supposed to remain on holiday until the start of August in order for him to get as much rest as possible ahead of the new campaign but he will travel with his club team-mates to England this week.

Barcelona manager Luis Enrique has named Messi in his 25-man travelling squad that will take part in a training camp at St George's Park, the FA's national football centre.

He could also feature in their pre-season friendly against Liverpool at Wembley on August 6.

FORMULA 1: LEWIS HAMILTON CLINCHES HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX VICTORY FOR RECORD-BREAKING FIFTH TIME AT HUNGARORING TO SNATCH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD FROM MERCEDES TEAM-MATE NICO ROSBERG

Lewis Hamilton claimed a record-breaking fifth Hungarian Grand Prix win to take the lead in the championship race for the first time this season.
Hamilton was pushed all the way by mercedes team-mate Nico Roseberg who finished second with Daniel Ricciardo completing the podium.
It was Hamilton's fifth win win in six races and now leads Roseborg in the driver's standings by six points.

 

FORMULA ONE HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX RESULTS AND CURRENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS.

1. Lewis Hamilton (Britain)-  Mercedes - 1:40:30:115
2. Nico Roseborg (Germany)-  Mercedes-  +00:01:977
3. Daniel  Ricciardo (Australia) - Red Bull -TAG Heuer- 00:27:539
4. Sebastian Vettel (Germany)- Ferrari- 00:28:213
5. Max Verstappen (Holland)- Red Bull- TAG Heuer- 00:48:659
6. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) - Ferrari - 00:49:044
7. Fernando Alonso (Spain) - Mc Laren- 1 lap
8. Carlos Saiz Jr (Spain)- Toro Rosso- Ferrari 1 lap
9. Valtteri Bottas (Finland)- Williams- Mercedes 1lap
10. Nico Huelkenberg (Germany) Force India-Mercedes 1 lap
11. Sergio Perez (Mexico)- Force India- Mercedes 1 lap
12. Jolyon Palmer (Britain)-Renault-1 lap
13. Esteban Gutierrez (Mexico)Haas - Ferrari 1 lap
14. Romain Grosjean(France)- Haas- Ferrari 1 lap
15. Kevin Magnussen(Denmark)- Renault 1 lap
16. Daniil Kvyat (Russia) Toro Rosso- Ferrari 1 lap
17. Felipe Nasr(Brazil)- Sauber-Ferrari- 1 lap
18. Felipe Massa(Brazil) Williams- Mercedes 2 laps
19. Pascal Wehrlain(Germany) Manor-Mercedes 2 laps
20. Marcus Ericsson(Sweden)- Sauber- Ferrari 2 laps
21. Rio Haryanto- (Indonesia)- Manor-Mercedes 2 laps

The German starred on pole after surviving stewards' inquiry late on Saturday night. Hamilton may not have liked that reprieve but it set the race up perfectely. Could Roseborg take advantage of his good fortune.

BOXING: EIGHT-FIGHT NOVICE WINS IBF ELIMINATOR

Eight-fight novice Sergiy Derevyanchenko smashed former IBF middleweight champion Sam Soliman to defeat inside two rounds in an IBF middleweight title eliminator at the Foxwoods Resort in Mashantucket, Connecticut, on Thursday night.

The 30-year-old Derevyanchenko was just too big and strong for the 42-year-old veteran Soliman who was dropped in the first round and twice in the second round before the referee waved the fight off.

Derevyanchenko dominated from the opening bell and caught Soliman with some stinging blows before he sent him down with a combination of punches as he came off the ropes.

However, Soliman managed to tie up the Russian to hold on until the bell.

In round two Derevyanchenko continued to dominate and knocked the Australian down with a flurry of punches.

He manged to beat the count but soon afterwards a big right-left combination sent Soliman through the ropes as the referee immediately stepped in to stop the fight.

Soliman was down on the canvas for several minutes after the end of the fight.

Derevyanchenko improved his record to 9-0; 7 and Soloman’s record dropped to 44-14; 18.

On the undercard in a middleweight bout Ievgen Khytrov 14-0; 12 dominated Paul Mendez 19-3-2; 9 before stopping him in the ninth round.

FOOTBALL: MATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHT CHELSEA 3 - 0 AC WOLFSBERGER (PRE-SEASON FRIENDLY 2016)

Wednesday’s friendly proved straightforward enough for the Blues to navigate, as they bounced back from Saturday’s loss to Rapid Vienna

Bertrand Traore, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Nathaniel Chalobah struck in Chelsea’s clash with Wolfsberger AC on Wednesday to hand them a 3-0 win.

The result ensured Antonio Conte oversaw his first victory in charge of the Blues, with new arrival Michy Batshuayi playing his first game, following 2-0 defeat to Rapid Vienna last time out.

The Italian started the likes of Diego Costa and Oscar but had to wait until the 41st minute before his side opened the scoring, Traore bundling home a scrappy goal.

A host of changes at half-time saw Chelsea lose some fluency and they had to rely on a late flurry of goals, as Loftus-Cheek and Chalobah struck to seal victory.

WATCH VIDEO BELOW

WWE: RAW AND SMACK DOWN RECEIVE NEW LOGOS FOLLOWING BRAND SPLIT

WWE has revealed the new logos for Raw and Smackdown following the brand extension.

Raw General Manager Mick Foley and Smackdown counterpart Daniel Bryan took to Twitter to make the announcements.

Many of my BIGGEST career moments have been on #RAW and I look forward to creating MORE in the #NewEra #NewLogo," wrote The Hardcore Legend, Foley.

"#SmackdownLive is where Superstars are the feature & in-ring competition is the focus. #YesYesYes #NewEraNewLogo," added Bryan.

Raw and Smackdown now feature distinctive rosters following last week's WWE Draft, with Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar among the Superstars exclusive to Raw and Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles and John Cena three of the grapplers on Smackdown.

TENNIS: JOHANNA KONTA REACHES BANK OF THE WEST CLASSIC SEMI-FINALS

Johanna Konta hit back from the loss of the second set to beat Saisai Zheng in the quarter-finals of the Bank of the West Classic on Friday.

The British No 1 was made to battle hard before securing a 6-2 4-6 6-3 victory over her Chinese opponent in Stanford, California.

The third seed started strongly and broke her opponent twice in the opening set but Zheng levelled in a scrappy second set which saw serve broken seven times.

Konta broke early in the third before Zheng rallied with three straight games, but another break saw the Briton move into a 4-3 lead.

She held serve before breaking Zheng for a third time and then held on to secure victory in just over two hours 20 minutes.

In the semi-final, she will face second seed Dominika Cibulkova after the Slovakian rallied from 2-5 down in the opener to win 11 straight games en route to a 7-5 6-0 victory over Japanese fifth seed Misaki Doi.

Top seed Venus Williams, winner of the tournament in 2000 and 2002, beat 17-year-old wild card CiCi Bellis 6-4 6-1 to set up a last-four meeting with fellow American Alison Riske, who was leading 6-3, 0-1 when fourth-seeded Coco Vandeweghe retired from their quarter-final with an ankle injury.

FORMULA 1: NICO ROSBERG KEEPS POLE POSITION AFTER STEWARD INVESTIGATION

Nico Rosberg has kept his Hungarian GP pole position after surviving an investigation into his controversial lap at the end of Q3 in Budapest.

After studying data of the incident, in which Rosberg passed double-yellow flags after McLaren's Fernando Alonso spun out, the stewards accepted telemetry from the German's Mercedes car 'demonstrated that the driver reduced speed significantly'.

Lewis Hamilton, Rosberg's team-mate and closest title rival, will start Sunday's race alongside the world championship leader on the front row.

Hamilton had to abandon his final flying lap after encountering Alonso's stricken McLaren while Rosberg set the fastest time of any driver during the second sector of the Hungaroring circuit in which the Spaniard had made his mistake.

"For sure there was double waved [yellows], but I had a very big lift and lost a lot of time as a result. I'm sure that'll be ok," said Rosberg.

"I acted according to what you need to do and so I showed a big lift and slowed down. I was slower in that yellow sector than on my previous fast lap, so I'm quite sure that it'll be ok," he later told Sky F1's Rachel Brookes.

But on being told that Rosberg set the fastest time in the middle sector during his pole lap, a visibly-surprised Hamilton responded: "He went purple through the sector? Wow, that is a surprise."

However, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff insisted he didn't believe an investigation was warranted. 

"He had a big lift into the yellow zone. It should be ok as per our data," Wolff told Sky F1.

After watching footage from Rosberg's Mercedes of the incident, Sky F1's Martin Brundle commented: "He definitely slowed through that left hander more than normal. That's a savvy pole position."

But Red Bull boss Christian Horner seemed less convinced, remarking: "It's down to the stewards to decide - Rosberg was behind Daniel and managed to get a purple middle sector."

Speaking several hours after the end of qualifying, Hamilton said it would benefit everyone if the FIA moved to clarify by how much drivers needed to slow for yellow flags.

"It needs to clarified now," he said. "For all us drivers, we need to fully understand the yellow flag situation. The way that it's written is not potentially how it's interpreted by the stewards or the drivers. More clarification would be good.

"For me, there was no question, I had to lift because Fernando was on the track. But perhaps for Nico, I think Fernando had cleared [out the way], but there were still flags. So it was just a different scenario."

Hamilton added: "The clarification that's needed is, Nico only lost a tenth through the corner, so if that's what really what we are allowed to do in future? Even though you lift and approach the corner with due care, if that's allowed on a double yellow... I thought maybe that's the case on a single yellow, but maybe on a double I thought you had to pay more caution to it.

''So if it's only a tenth you have to lose that's now different for us all drivers, we can potentially approach it differently. But I'm not sure that's the safest approach."

Earlier this season Force India's Nico Hulkenberg avoided any action from the stewards in a similar situation.

In qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, Hulkenberg was investigated for failing to slow down under yellow flags when Carlos Sainz left the track following an engine blow out.

On that occasion, the stewards ruled: 'Although the driver went 'green' [setting a personal best time] in the sector where the double yellow flags were displayed, the telemetry clearly demonstrated he had decelerated on approaching the flag point and that his speed reduced in the yellow flag sector.'