Today's sports news: What you need to know

Latest - Counties-Manukau has made a commanding start to the Farah Palmer Cup.

The Heat have recorded a resounding 89-3 win over North Harbour Hibiscus in Pukekohe, after leading 37-3 at halftime.

Counties scored 14 unanswered tries, with reigning world sevens player of the year Ruby Tui scoring a second-half hat-trick in her debut for the Heat.

Fellow winger Waikohika Flesher led the way with four tries

Earlier today, Waikato beat Northland Kauri 18-5 in the season opener in Hamilton.

Taranaki play Auckland tomorrow in Inglewood tomorrow in the final match of the truncated opening round.

McLaughlin wins again in Townsville

New Zealand driver Scott McLaughlin has won his 10th race of the season to extend his lead in the Supercars championship.

The two-time defending series champion has been unchallenged after starting from pole position in this weekend's opening race in Townsville, finishing well clear of Australian drivers Cam Waters and Chaz Mostert.

Fellow New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen was forced to retire from the race with a mechanical problem, after starting from second.

It's McLaughlin's 53rd career victory and he's now 143 points clear of veteran Australian driver Jamie Whincup in the championship standings.

Whincup finished fourth in the opening race in Townsville, after starting from seventh.

Top men's seed through to last 16 in New York

Top seed Novak Djokovic has continued his dominance of Jan-Lennard Struff with a 6-3 6-3 6-1 win to advance to the fourth round of the U.S. Open.

Djokovic, a three-times champion at Flushing Meadows, was never really pushed by the German, who has taken just one set off the Serb in their five career meetings.

"It was a very, very good performance from my side," Djokovic said after recording his 600th career win on hard courts.

"I managed to read his serve well. Made one necessary break in the first set, I faced one or two break points in the opening game.

"I moved well and after the first set, the second and third was a really great feeling on the court."

Djokovic and Marin Cilic, who won the U.S. Open in 2014, are the only two men remaining in the draw who have won a Grand Slam tournament.

Djokovic will be a heavy favourite when he faces 20th seed Pablo Carreno Busta on Spain in the fourth round on Monday (NZT).

- Reuters

Kiwis out of US Open

New Zealand tennis players Michael Venus and Marcus Daniell have both suffered surprise second round defeats in their respective US Open men's doubles matches in New York.

Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen proved their opening round win over second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo was no fluke as they dispatched Venus and his Australian partner John Peers with relative ease, 6-4 6-4.

A break in each set was enough for the Belgian pair who are through to the quarter finals.

World number 11 ranked Venus and Peers could only fashion two break point chances in the match and they came in the final game while Vliegen and Gille had the antipodean pair under plenty of pressure on serve and converted two of their eight chances to break.

Earlier Marcus Daniell and his Austrian partner Philipp Oswald were beaten 7-6 (5) 6-3 in 1 hour 23 by the American pair of Mackenzie McDonald and Christopher Eubanks.

Sharks in trouble after four players booked

Cronulla coach John Morris has apologised to Sharks fans after a night of ill-discipline saw Chad Townsend sent off and three other players put on report in a 38-10 thrashing from Newcastle.

Morris, who called the performance "a nightmare", is already anticipating a potentially-season defining Tuesday night at the judiciary for "three cases by the look of it" after Townsend was marched and forwards Wade Graham, Toby Rudolf and Braden Hamlin-Uele were cited for lifting tackles.

Townsend was sent off for a horror shot on Kalyn Ponga who scored three of the Knights tries.

The seven tries to two rout further dented the Sharks' record in 2020 as they are yet to beat a current top eight team.

It was a huge bounce back for the Knights after last week's 30-point loss to the Warriors and all but cements their place in the finals.

The Warriors are now just four points adrift of the top eight with a game in hand, making Cronulla's spot in the top eight up for grabs with three rounds of the regular season to play.

The Warriors can get within two points of Cronulla if they beat Parramatta on Sunday before they face the Sharks next weekend.

Messi commits to Barcelona

Lionel Messi ended intense speculation about his future by saying he will remain with Barcelona for another year - but only because he did not want to enter a court battle with the club about his contract.

The Argentine six-times world player of the year had told the club last month that he wanted to leave, insisting a clause in his contract allowed him to do so on a free transfer.

Barcelona, backed by La Liga, have insisted that a 700 million euros release clause would have to be paid.

"I wasn't happy and I wanted to leave. I have not been allowed this in any way and I will stay at the club so as not to get into a legal dispute. The management of the club led by Bartomeu is a disaster," Messi told website Goal.com.

"There was another way and it was to go to trial," he added. GǣI would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, which gave me everything since I arrived. It is the club of my life, I have made my life here.

"Barca gave me everything and I gave it everything. I thought and was sure that I was free to leave. The president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I stayed or not. Now they cling to the fact that I did not say it before June 10, when it turns out that on June 10 we were competing for La Liga in the middle of this awful coronavirus and this disease altered all the season."

The Argentine, 33, added: "When I communicated my wish to leave to my wife and children, it was a brutal drama. The whole family began crying, my children did not want to leave Barcelona, nor did they want to change schools."

- Reuters

Co-leaders at Tour Championship

The world's top two ranked golfers Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm are tied atop the leaderboard at 13-under par after the first round of the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta.

As top seed in the season-long points standings, Johnson started at 10-under par with a two-shot lead thanks to the staggered scoring system and mixed five birdies with two bogeys to card a three-under 67 at East Lake.

The American's four-and-a-half foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th would have given him the outright lead but the ball lipped out and he was forced to settle for par.

Rahm, who was paired with Johnson, nearly holed out from the bunker on 18 but his ball also found the lip of the cup and he was forced to settle for par to cap a round of five-under 65.

Former FedExCup champion Justin Thomas, who started in third place three shots back, got up and down for birdie on 18 to shoot a four-under 66, two shots off the lead at 11 under.

- Reuters