Today's sports news: What you need to know

Latest - New Zealand basketballer Corey Webster is leaving the Breakers after 11 seasons with the Auckland-based Australian National Basketball League club.

The shooting guard has reportedly signed with a club in Egypt.

The 32-year-old is the fifth most capped player in Breakers' history behind Tom Abercrombie, Mika Vukona, Paul Henare and Alex Pledger.

The Breakers said Webster leaves the club by mutual consent despite having two years still to run on his contract.

Hartley on P2 for Le Mans 24-hour

Defending champion Brendon Hartley's team will start second on the grid for this weekend's Le Mans 24-hour motor race in France.

The New Zealander was second quickest in the Hypercar shoot-out behind the other Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi.

Kobayashi has taken four poles in five years at Le Mans but has yet to win the biggest prize in sportscar racing.

Hartley's team includes two other former Formula One drivers Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi, with the Japanese driver having won the past three years.

There are two other New Zealanders in the field with Earl Bamber driving a Porsche in the LM GTE Pro category and Jaxon Evans also in a Porsche in the STE Am category.

The hyperpole qualifying format was first introduced last year and features the six quickest teams in each class, or five in the case of the top hypercar category.

Mixed day for Lydia Ko

Lydia Ko fired an even par 72 to be tied for 41st after the opening round of the British Open at Carnoustie in Scotland.

Ko, the world number six, is five shots off the leaders.

World number one and Olympic champion Nelly Korda is one of three co-leaders along with Madelene Sagstrom of Sweden and Sei-young Kim of South Korea.

Korda is bidding to continue a sensational year having won the PGA Championship and Olympic gold, although she admitted after her round she was feeling a little jaded.

"Honestly we didn't have much wind today. It was very chilly in the morning but other than that the wind kept calm and I took advantage of it," Korda told Sky Sports.

"I am a little tired but I will still give it my all these next few days. I will go home next week and sleep in my bed for the first time in six weeks so that'll be nice."

Ko's front nine included three birdies and three bogeys.

Coll and King into last eight

New Zealand squash players Paul Coll and Joelle King have both survived five game contests to reach the quarter-finals of the British Open in Hull.

Coll, the men's third seed, came from 2-1 down against Egypt's Mazen Hesham to reach the last eight.

"It was very tough, a lot of people see his shots to the front, but today his weight of stroke to the back was really good,"

In the fifth game Coll's fitness showed through and he played a more reliable style of play to finish off the match 5-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-2, 11-4 in 73 minutes.

He will face good friend Diego Elias from Peru ranked eighth in the world in the quarter-finals.

Meanwhile King beat Sabrina Sobhy of the United States 11-1, 11-9, 11-13, 2-11, 13-11 in 64 minutes.

Seventh seed King looked to be struggling as the match wore on with the ankle injury from her previous round troubling her, however in the final game she was able to use her experience to hang in the match and eventually make the quarter-finals for the sixth time.

King will now face either fourth seed Hania El Hammamy (Egypt) or Frenchwoman Melissa Alves in the last eight.

Storm run continues

The top of the table Melbourne Storm came from behind to beat the Titans 34-20 in their NRL game on the Gold Coast.

The Tians made a great start and led 10-0 after 11 minutes and were ahead 16-12 at the break.

However the premier's got into gear in the second half to record their 19th straight win.

While victory could have propelled the Titans above the seventh-placed Knights, the loss means they will drop out of the eight if Canberra beat Manly tomorrow.

The Warriors, who have won three in a row, play Brisbane on Sunday.

NZ cyclists sign with Anthony Joshua

Nelson pro-cycling siblings Finn and Niamh Fisher-Black are now on the books of British boxer Anthony Joshua.... but they're not about to change sports.

The pair are among a group of riders who have signed with Joshua's management company 258MGT.

Joshua is one of one the biggest stars in global sport and his company has grown significantly since he set it up to handle his own commercial interests.

This week it was announced that it will incorporate a cycling division.

They were involved in Finn Fisher-Black's move from Jumbo Visma to UAE Team Emirates.

Niamh rides for the Dutch SD Worx team.

-Cycling News

Roglic back in front

Reigning Vuelta a Espana champion Primoz Roglic has regained his overall lead with an impressive showing in the mountains in the sixth stage although he missed out on victory to Magnus Cort.

Danish rider Cort led with 1.5km to go and held off a late chase from Roglic.

The Slovenian came second and crossed the line right behind Cort in three hours 30 minutes 33 seconds in the 158km ride from Requena to Alto de la Montana de Cullera.

Jumbo-Visma rider Roglic now has a 25-second lead over Spaniard Enric Mas and a 36-second advantage over Miguel Angel Lopez of Movistar in the general classification.

The Vuelta returns to the mountains for Friday's punishing stage seven, a 152km ride from Gandia to Balcon de Alicante featuring six categorised climbs, including one at the start, and a summit finish.

-Reuters

UEFA finalists named

Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne and Chelsea pair N'Golo Kante and Jorginho are in the running for UEFA's 2020-21 male player of the year award after topping an all-midfield shortlist.

All featured in Euro 2020 -- De Bruyne for Belgium, Kante with France and Jorginho with winners Italy -- and the shortlist is the first in the 11-year existence of the award to feature only midfielders.

UEFA did not reveal the number of votes cast for the three.

Barcelona's Lionel Messi, the six times Ballon d'Or winner who has moved from Barcelona to Paris St Germain, was fourth on the list.

Bayern Munich's Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, last year's winner, came in fifth with PSG's Gianluigi Donnarumma and Kylian Mbappe sixth and seventh.

The top player from Euro 2020 finalists England was Manchester City's Raheem Sterling in eighth. Portugal and Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo was ninth and Norway and Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Haaland 10th.

The votes were cast by coaches of the 24 national teams that featured at Euro 2020 as well as 80 coaches of clubs that played in the group stages of UEFA's competitions and journalists from each of UEFA's 55 member associations.

The winner will be named on Aug. 26, along with UEFA's women's player of the year and Champions League positional award winners, at the Champions League group stage draw in Istanbul.

The women's shortlist is comprised of three Barcelona midfielders -- Jennifer Hermoso and Lieke Martens along with Alexia Putellas.

-Reuters

Six changes to Pumas

Argentina have named uncapped wing Ignacio Mendy in their side to face South Africa in the Rugby Championship this weekend, one of six changes to the starting side that lost 32-12 to the Springboks last weekend.

Mendy, 21, who was part of the Argentina team that won a bronze medal in Rugby Sevens at the Tokyo Olympics, will make his debut against the world champions, with uncapped team mate Lucio Cinti, also an Olympic medallist, on the bench.

Domingo Miotti takes over from Nicolas Sanchez at flyhalf, while Gonzalo Bertranou is in at scrumhalf for Felipe Ezcurra in a new half-back pairing.

Santiago Chocobares and Jeronimo De La Fuente have been retained as the centres, with Santiago Carreras moving from full-back to the wing to accommodate Juan Cruz Mallia in the number 15 jersey.

There is a new lock pairing of Tomas Lavanini and Matias Alemanno, with Guido Petti moving from the second row to the number seven jersey.

-Reuters

Law suffering from Alzheimer's

Manchester United and Scotland great Denis Law has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, the 81-year-old said in a statement.

Striker Law, who won the Ballon d'Or in 1964 and is third on United's all-time list of corers with 237 goals in 404 matches behind Bobby Charlton and Wayne Rooney, said that the road ahead would be "hard, demanding, painful and ever changing.

Law - who started his career with Huddersfield Town, had two spells at Manchester City and played in Italy for Torino - won the European Cup, two English titles and the FA Cup in his 11 years at Old Trafford.

A study in 2019 found that professional footballers are three and a half times more likely to die from dementia than people of the same age range in the general population.

Sir Bobby was the fifth member of England's 1966 World Cup-winning side to be diagnosed with dementia.

-BBC

Stott back with Melbourne City

New Zealand defender Rebekah Stott will return to W-League club Melbourne City this season after battling stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer.

Former Brighton & Hove Albion player Stott said in March she would need to go through four months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with the condition.

Melbourne City said the 28-year-old is now in complete remission after undergoing treatment in Australia.

Stott trained with semi-professional club Bulleen Lions last month before deciding to rejoin Melbourne City, where she won four Championships and two Premiership titles from 2015-2020.

"It's an incredible feeling for me to have football back and I definitely didn't realise how much I'd missed it until I got back on the pitch," Stott said in a club statement

Stott represented Australia at youth level before switching allegiance to New Zealand, her country of birth. She has earned 81 caps for the 'Football Ferns'.

-Reuters