Sports News Roundup: Australia's Kygrios no fan of Slams without crowd; Baseball fans sue MLB, balking at lack of refunds and more

Following is a summary of current sports news briefs.

Australia's Kyrgios no fan of Slams without crowd

As Grand Slam governing bodies ponder over the perfect blueprint of future events amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, Australian world number 40 Nick Kyrgios has said he does not want to play in a major in the absence of crowd. The tennis season was suspended in March due to the pandemic and the shutdown will continue at least until mid-July with countries closing borders and going into lockdown to contain the spread of the virus.

Baseball fans sue MLB, balking at lack of refunds for canceled games

Major League Baseball and its 30 teams have been sued by a pair of New Yorkers upset that fans are not being offered their money back on tickets to games canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. In a proposed class action filed on Monday, Matthew Ajzenman and Susan Terry-Bazer complained that the sport has failed to come up with a refund plan, more than a month after Commissioner Rob Manfred scrapped the scheduled March 26 season opening.

Former UK Athletics performance director Black dies aged 60

Former performance director of UK Athletics (UKA) Neil Black died over the weekend at the age of 60, the organization said on Tuesday. Black stood down as performance director after seven years in October when Britain managed only five medals at the world championships in Doha, the lowest total since 2005.

Former UCLA soccer coach to plead guilty in U.S. college admissions scandal

A former men's soccer coach at the University of California, Los Angeles has agreed to plead guilty and admit that he accepted $200,000 in bribes to facilitate the admission of two students as fake athletic recruits, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Jorge Salcedo, 47, is among several sports coaches at universities, including Yale and Georgetown, who federal prosecutors in Boston have brought charges against related to the U.S. college admissions scandal.

Tampa mayor: Brady kicked out of public park

A city staff member had to ask new Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady to leave a closed public park where he was working out in Tampa, Fla., according to the city's mayor. "A lot of our park staff, they patrol around just to make sure people aren't in there with contact sports and things," mayor Jane Castor said in a virtual news conference on Monday. "(A worker) saw an individual working out in one of our downtown parks. She went over to tell him that it was closed, and it was Tom Brady.

ITF forms player panels for lower tier professionals

With lower-level athletes alleging lack of communication with the International Tennis Federation amid the COVID-19 lockdown, the governing body on Tuesday announced the creation of player panels for those competing on its World Tennis Tour. The ITF World Tennis Tour consists of lower-rung tournaments and serves as a transition circuit between the junior and senior game, allowing more professionals a chance to earn a living while helping them move up the ladder to play on the men's ATP Tour and the WTA Tour for the women.

Athletics: U.S. Olympic trials rescheduled for June 2021 in Eugene, Oregon

The postponed U.S. Olympic track and field trials have been rescheduled for June 18-27, 2021 in Eugene, Oregon, USA Track and Field (USATF) announced on Tuesday. The trials, the selection meeting for the American team for the Tokyo Olympics, originally had been planned for mid-June of this year in Eugene but were postponed when the Tokyo Olympics were delayed for a year because of the coronavirus.

IOC removes Abe comment regarding Olympics costs from website

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) removed a comment from its website on Tuesday that referred to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when discussing the financial impact of postponing the Games, following objections from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Organising Committee. The IOC and the Japanese government agreed last month to postpone the 2020 Olympics because of the global coronavirus outbreak.

WNBA draft drew largest TV audience in 16 years

The 2020 WNBA Draft televised by ESPN on Friday was the league's most-watched draft in 16 years. Conducted virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, the draft averaged 387,000 viewers. That was up 123 percent from the 2019 draft and up 33 percent from the last time it aired on ESPN in 2011, according to a WNBA statement released Tuesday.

Motor racing: Society needs sport to return as soon as possible, says Agag

Sport has to return as soon as possible for the sake of society as the world battles COVID-19 and going behind closed doors is the immediate way forward, Formula E series founder Alejandro Agag said on Tuesday. The Spaniard, whose latest electric motor racing brainchild is the crowd-free Extreme E due to launch next year, said putting on events without spectators could help fight the pandemic.