Springboks even up rivalry Test series 1-1

South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus was looking forward to watching New Zealand counterpart Dave Rennie squirm for the next week after tying their four-Test series on Saturday.

The Springboks relied on superb goal-kicking by Cheslin Kolbe — seven from seven off the tee — to win the second Test 33-26 after New Zealand outscored them on tries 4-3.

World champion South Africa dropped the first Test in Johannesburg and has not lost consecutive Tests at home on Erasmus’ watch — since 2018 — and he was relieved they got back into a series in which they started as the heavy favorite.

“Of course I felt the pressure, and the players will tell you I felt the pressure,” Erasmus said. “I try not to put it on them but I was nervous.”

He said he and the older Rennie were November babies, both Scorpios, saying “That’s why he’s able to work me out.”

“It’s his first loss [as All Blacks coach] ... and he’ll feel what we felt this week,” Erasmus said. “We 100 percent understand why people are upset because no one wants to support a losing team. No one in South Africa wants to support anything that’s not working. A loss here and there doesn’t make you a losing team immediately, but it’s when you go on a losing run that the pressure comes on.

“We must make sure we’re not confident and think we’re all good again because there were a lot of things we didn’t do well,” he added.

One of the reasons Rennie was hired in March was because predecessor Scott Robertson had a 1-3 record against South Africa. Erasmus said the All Blacks were “two classes up” from last year.

“They’re really well coached and they’ve got athletes who can beat you on a dime,” he said. “A couple of more phases at the end and it could have been a draw.”

The late switch of the front rows was because of the weather, Erasmus said.

They had expected wet conditions but they turned out dry so he went with the lighter front row in the reserves. They were still a few kilograms heavier than New Zealand’s starters.

Fullback Damian Willemse, a playmaker who can cover midfield and flyhalf, injured a hamstring and Erasmus was not counting on him for the third Test in Soweto next Saturday.

Rennie reported a clean bill of health apart from a neck issue for winger Will Jordan, who finished the match. He said their lineout issues were “a work on” and said the scrummaging, an issue in the first Test, was reasonably managed by referee Angus Gardner but said the Springboks were still walking around and coming through the tighthead.

Erasmus called it “nonsense” and Boks loosehead Ox Nche said there were no complications: “We wasted a lot of time in scrums today because we all had different interpretations.”

Taiwanese badminton veteran Chou Tien-chen rose two places to No. 4 in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) men’s singles world rankings released yesterday following his bronze-medal finish at a tournament in India last week. The 36-year-old Chou advanced to the semi-finals of the BWF World Championships in New Delhi, where he lost to Japan’s Kodai Naraoka, earning a bronze medal and 10,500 ranking points. After the points were added to total ranking points, Chou climbed to No. 4 with 86,580 points.

The reshuffle also saw former world No. 1 Shi Yuqi of China drop to No. 6 after being eliminated in the

Serena Williams getting back on the court at the US Open after a four-year absence and Carlos Alcaraz returning to competitive tennis after being out the past four months with injury brought cheers and nostalgia to the Grand Slam tournament. The celebration was short-lived. After winning their debut playing together, Williams and Alcaraz on Tuesday got knocked out in the mixed doubles quarter-finals by Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli 5-4 (4), 4-1.

Cobolli before the match called their opponents “the queen of tennis and the king of now.” The star-studded duo with a combined eight US Open singles championships certainly

A record number of Japanese players are in the English Premier League this season, with clubs attracted by their proven quality, value for money and the “very little risk” involved in signing them. Ten players from Japan were registered with top-tier English teams when the campaign started last weekend and more are potentially on the way before the transfer window closes. Zion Suzuki was the highest-profile arrival with his switch to Aston Villa, with former Arsenal defender Takehiro Tomiyasu returning to London with Crystal Palace, midfielder Hidemasa Morita joining Hull City and Daizen Maeda swapping Celtic for Ipswich Town.

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Park So-yeon is set to become the first woman to represent South Korea’s national team in e-sports and wants to pave the way for more in the male-dominated world of competitive gaming.
South Korea is an e-sports powerhouse and Park has been chosen to compete in survival horror game Identity V at the Asian Games in Nagoya and the wider Aichi area from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4.
The 23-year-old Park, the only woman in South Korea’s team of 36 e-sports competitors heading to Japan, said she wanted to “go all out and have no regrets.”
“As I am the first, I feel