Welcome to our live report of the first day of the first India-England Test from Chennai. Join us for updates, analysis and colour. You can find our traditional ball-by-ball commentary here

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5.00pm: Stumps - England 263 for 3 (Root 128*, Sibley 87)

That's the end of a fantastic day for England and - although it's an over-used phrase, in this case it's apt - a fairytale day for captain Root. An unbeaten century in his 100th Test and a partnership with Sibley, worth 200, helped England recover from 63 for 2. Sibley hinted at this knock with his 56 not out in Galle at the end of an otherwise torrid Sri Lanka tour for him, but it ended in bittersweet fashion here when he was out lbw to Bumrah in the last over before the close.

4.45pm: What a sport

Now that's a nice show of sportsmanship. No sooner has Root whacked Ashwin for a six over midwicket and the England skipper goes down with a violent cramp. In comes Kohli to help him stretch out. Warm, fuzzy feelings all round.

4.15pm: India take the new ball

Ashwin returns to the attack to bowl the 79th and 81st overs, and Kohli decides to take the new ball immediately after. Ishant Sharma - who has only bowled 12 overs so far - comes back on, and India may decide to keep Ashwin on given his ability with a hard ball. This partnership is now worth 179 runs, and England will be desperate to reach stumps without losing another wicket.

4.00pm: Three in a row

Root nudges a single into the leg side behind square to bring up his 20th Test hundred in his 100th match. It's his third in as many Tests, following scores of 228 and 186 in Sri Lanka, and he will be determined to turn this into another epic. Two overs until the new ball is available to India.

3.45pm: Root closes in

Joe Root is six runs short of joining a list of greats who made tons in their 100th Test match at drinks in the evening session. For India, the new ball looks increasingly important, and it's due in six overs' time.

"The intensity has gone for the Indian fielders. They're waiting for the new ball," says Alastair Cook on Channel 4. "Root's ability to manipulate the field so he can score so freely - it's so hard as a captain to deal with that. His batting over the last couple of weeks has been sensational. [Sibley] is coming out of his bubble a little bit but he doesn't need to do anything different. He's putting the miles in the legs so that hopefully people like Pope and Stokes can cash in."

3.25pm: Nadeem's mixed bag

Shahbaz Nadeem has, in some ways, done what was asked of him in this innings. He has done pretty well in terms of keeping things tight and nagging away on a length, but he would be disappointed to have conceded seven boundaries, while Kohli will be particularly annoyed at the fact he has overstepped three times - twice in as many balls earlier in the day.

But all told, he has performed steadily in a holding role, and will be encouraged by the fact Sibley has started to play slightly more expansively against him since tea. The second new ball, due in 10 overs, could still be a key factor in the day.

2.50pm: Taking Root

Root is quickly up and running after tea, and has more or less caught up with Sibley's score despite coming in 25 overs later. Gaurav Sundararaman points out that he has now made 14 half-centuries in 17 Tests against India.

2.10pm: Tea - England 140 for 2 (Sibley 53*, Root 45*)

An excellent partnership between Sibley and Root, which is worth 77 runs in 31.2 overs as they reach tea unscathed. England will be delighted to have negotiated their way through the afternoon without losing a wicket but there are positive signs for India, with the ball - which looks extremely old and battered already - reversing significantly, for Bumrah and in particular for Ishant Sharma. This is Ishant's first Test in 11 months after injury ruled him out of the Australia tour but he has settled back into the rhythm of things seamlessly.

For readers in the UK, meanwhile, Andrew Miller has been writing about the nostalgia trip of this Test being available on terrestrial TV - the first shown on free-to-air TV here since 2005. Have a read here.

1.45pm: Sibley and Root cash in

This is the sort of situation which would usually see Ravindra Jadeja rattling along, bowling tight lines and forcing batsmen to play, but in his absence England have been able to score much more freely against India's back-up spinners, Washington Sundar and Shahbaz Nadeem. As discussed below, Root eschewed the sweep early in his innings but has started to play it regularly.

He explained his method in an interview with the Telegraph this week: "I will sweep a lot on line and not length. If it is outside off stump and it is a left-arm spinner [turning the ball away] and even if it is spinning big, it will loop over the keeper and slip if you top edge it so sweeping is a safe shot. You can't be bowled or lbw because it is pitching outside off stump and turning away and all the gaps are on the leg side." Sure enough, when Nadeem strayed wide of the off stump, he got down and swept him for four.

But Sibley has been particularly impressive after looking all at sea against the turning ball in Sri Lanka. He has scored heavily through midwicket as usual, but has looked more assured in his footwork, making an easy decision whether to come fully forward or camp on the back foot and sticking to it, and has just brought up his second half-century in as many innings with a back-foot punch to extra cover. Unsurprisingly, Kohli has turned to Bumrah and Ashwin again, realising he needs to break this partnership.

1.15pm: Root puts the sweep away

Joe Root swept prolifically in England's recent series in Sri Lanka, playing the shot more than 50 times in both of his hundreds as he dominated Lasith Embuldeniya and Dilruwan Perera in particular. But Root's sweep has been conspicuous by its absence this afternoon: he did not play it at all in the first 57 balls he faced, despite the majority of those being off R Ashwin and Shahbaz Nadeem.

There are various possible explanations. Ashwin and Nadeem have both bowled quickly at him, regularly operating in the 55mph/90kph region, while Ashwin in particular has managed to find drift away from the outside edge and bounce from a length, making the sweep a higher-risk option. Root finally decided to take the shot on during Washington Sundar's first over, but misjudged it after appearing to premeditate: the ball was fuller than he had anticipated, and dribbled into the leg side via the glove.

Updated: It seems like Root has decided he can target Washington with the sweep and the reverse. After three overs of Washington's spell, Root has swept him twice and reverse-swept him once. He has also been happy to skip down the track against him, clearly feeling like his lack of turn allows him to attack.

12.50pm: Ashwin vs Root

The battle between India's best spinner and England's best batsman is compelling. Root played incredibly well against spin in Sri Lanka but has not found things quite so easy this afternoon, especially with Ashwin finding a hint of drift away from the outside edge. This pitch has a bit more bounce in it that the surfaces at Galle did, and Ashwin's guile and mystery means that he has been able to keep Root guessing in a way that Perera and Embuldeniya could not. Root scored 149 runs for twice out against Ashwin on the 2016-17 tour and averages 85.00 against him in all Tests, but has not found it easy to pick his lengths today.

Root is also having to deal with the threat of Ishant Sharma in this session, bottom-edging him through to Pant on the bounce, nearly strangling down the leg side and surviving an lbw shout within the space of five balls in the 36th over. Meanwhile, Ashwin has changed his plan to Sibley, going round the wicket and angling the ball across him, while Kohli has been happy to plug his scoring options by posting several fielders at midwicket, which is Sibley's strongest area.

12.20pm: Bumrah's early strikes

Shiva Jayaraman has run the numbers on why Bumrah is a go-to bowler against batsmen fresh at the crease: he has taken 61 top-order wickets (top seven) in Test cricket. 31 of those 61 wickets (50.8%) have been of batsmen yet to reach double figures. Among bowlers with 50 or more top-order wickets since Bumrah's debut, the only bowler who has a higher percentage of single-digit scalps is Stuart Broad. 51 of Broad's 91 top-order wickets (56.7%) have been of batsmen dismissed in single digits. Dan Lawrence was the 11th top-order batsmen to be dismissed on a duck by Bumrah. Since his debut, only Broad (17) and Kemar Roach (12) have dismissed more top-order batsmen for a duck.

As for why that is, I'd suggest that Bumrah's unique action takes some getting used to, meaning that batsmen are particularly vulnerable when they face him for the first time in a match. And of course, as his overall Test average below 22 attests, he is exceptionally skilled, too. Broad, meanwhile, has made a point of bowling straight and making batsmen play over the last two years - which is something else that Bumrah is particularly good at.

11.30am: Lunch - England 67 for 2 (Root 4*, Sibley 26*)

Dan Lawrence, who hadn't batted at No. 3 in a first-class game since September 2017, doesn't last long in his new role for England. Kohli whipped Ashwin out of the attack straight after his breakthrough in order to give Bumrah an opportunity against the new batsman, and he appeared to extract some reverse-swing to bring one back in sharply that pinned Lawrence in front.

A slightly sketchy start from Root in his 100th Test, who skewed a leading edge through the covers as Ashwin - having changed ends - got one to drift away from the bat. Root also set off for a very tight single, which Ashwin seemed convinced had run him out, but the replays showed he was safely home.

Here's Shiva Jayaraman on Burns' reverse-sweep: England batsmen played 44 reverse-sweeps/paddles against spinners in their recent tour of Sri Lanka. The shot fetched England 69 runs at the cost of just a solitary wicket. Perhaps, the lower bounce in comparison on the pitches at Galle worked to their benefit.

However, it was still a riskier, low-percentage option for the England batsmen considering that they were in control of their shots only 75% of the time. In comparison, they were in control of their other attacking shots against the Sri Lanka spinners 94% of the time. They averaged 100 runs per dismissal from the other attacking options (as opposed to 69 from reverse-sweeps). It was certainly a low-percentage shot for Rory Burns to try in the first session of the Test, on a pitch that has largely looked flat.

11.20am: Burns' brainfade

Burns had been untroubled by Ashwin's round-the-wicket angle to him, happily getting across to the off side and working him off his pads. Off the first ball of the 24th over, he skipped down the pitch to clip him through midwicket, causing Ashwin to change his plan and go over the wicket.

Almost immediately, he looked more troubled by the ball angling across him and spinning away from the bat, looking more awkward in defence that he previously had. Off the fifth ball of the over, he decided that he needed to throw Ashwin off the scent by bringing out the reverse-sweep, a shot that he had played against spin only seven times previously in his career, but he was through the shot early and the ball looped up to Pant via the glove.

11.00am: Steady progress for England

The 50 partnership comes up between Sibley and Burns, as Burns clips Ashwin behind square for a couple. There has been some slightly erratic running between the wickets as they've look to pinch singles this morning, but they've managed to rotate well and tick over, rather than allowing bowlers to settle into a rhythm of bowling at one of them for a prolonged period of time.

Shiva Jayaraman tells me this is the first time in 13 home Tests that India have conceded a 50+ stand for the first wicket, though as Gaurav Sundararaman points out, England's openers have often been successful in India across the last decade.

Shahbaz Nadeem has been thrown the ball for the first time, and he strayed a little on the short side early on, allowing Burns and Sibley to commit to getting either fully forward or fully back. Burns swept him for three, while Sibley rocked back to cut from deep in the crease. His length improved in his second over, moving a fraction fuller, but he will be keen to get the batsmen playing.

10.10am: Ashwin on early

Bumrah's first spell last only three overs, as Kohli throws the ball to Ashwin on his home ground. As the table below illustrates, both of England's openers have had their issues against spinners in their Test careers to date, but perhaps the most concerning aspect of those figures for England fans is that they have played the vast majority of their games in conditions which do not suit spin.

Burns has had issues against offspin in particular, with Roston Chase dismissing him five times in 93 balls in Tests - and there is no doubt that Ashwin is a significantly better bowler. Sibley starts solidly enough against him, getting fully back to length balls, and steering him for four through the gully, but this will be a tough challenge.

Gaurav Sundararaman tells me that since Ashwin's debut, only four bowlers - Broad, Anderson, Boult and Philander - have taken more wickets than him with the first new ball (i.e. within the first 20 overs of an innings).

9.50am: Bumrah's first home spell

More than three years after his Test debut, Jasprit Bumrah is bowling in a Test in India for the first time, and there's a chance straightaway. His first ball at home is angled into the left-handed Burns from round the wicket, and Rishabh Pant puts down a tricky, one-handed catch, diving low to his right as Burns looks to work off his pads. That will add further scrutiny to Pant's keeping, with plenty of Indian fans suggesting in the build-up that he should play as a specialist batsman with Saha behind the stumps.

There's early evidence of India's planning for this series in the first four overs, with a leg gully briefly stationed for Dom Sibley (he has been caught strangled down the leg side regularly in his fledgling career) and the seamers opting to bowl round the wicket to Burns and hoping to shape the ball into him. A silly mid-on has come in at the start of Ishant's third over, with his left boot almost touching the strip.

9.25am: Root brings up his 100

England captain Joe Root has been presented with his 100th Test cap by vice-captain Ben Stokes ahead of play. For our extensive coverage of his milestone Test, click here, and don't forget to check out Polite Enquiries with the man himself.

9.00am: England win toss and bat

No hesitation in opting to make first use of this pitch for Joe Root, who is playing his 100th Test today. "I do enjoy playing in India. It's a big challenge and the boys will have to relish it," he says. Virat Kohli admits that he would have batted first, too, and calls it a "good cricketing wicket".

For India, the big news this morning is that Axar Patel - who looked set to partner R Ashwin as the second spinner - was ruled out 80 minutes before the toss with a knee injury suffered in yesterday's training session. They have decided to pick three spinners in Ashwin, Washington Sundar and Shahbaz Nadeem, with Jasprit Bumrah (playing his first-ever home Test) and Ishant Sharma forming a two-man pace attack.

Zak Crawley misses both Chennai Tests after suffering a freak wrist injury, so Dan Lawrence keeps his place and is carded to bat at No. 3. The other big calls: Dom Bess plays ahead of Moeen Ali, while Jimmy Anderson is preferred to Stuart Broad.

Warning: Do not try this at home. It's time for our annual Way-Too-Early All-Stars roster predictions, and this year was more difficult than ever.

I ended up with a headache trying to figure out whom to cut from the National League pitching staff (sorry, Max Scherzer), which shortstops to leave off (sorry, Trea Turner), and whether Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton will actually remain healthy enough to warrant selection (sorry, Yankees fans).

If you do wish to try this on your own, remember the roster rules: 32 players per league, including 20 position players (the American League must feature two designated hitters) and 12 pitchers (at least three must be relievers). And don't forget: Every team must have a representative.

Here are my full picks for the American League and National League squads.

Buoyed by World Athletics Label Road Race status, Antrim Coast Half Marathon organiser James McIlroy hopes to see one-hour barrier broken in August

Five months ago the Antrim Coast Half Marathon proved one of the road racing highlights of the pandemic-hit year when Mo Farah and Lily Partridge triumphed on a picturesque and fast 13.1-mile course in Northern Ireland.

Now, in 2021, the event is set to be bigger, better and even quicker with race organiser James McIlroy hoping for a field of 10,000, plus thousands more spectators as the elite runners try to break the one-hour barrier for men and 70-minute barrier for women.

“The plan is to get the first sub-60 and hopefully well inside 70 minutes for women in Northern Ireland,” says McIlroy.

The event enjoyed a timely boost recently when it became one of only three events in the UK to be currently included in the series of World Athletics Label Road Races, the other two being the London Marathon and Cardiff Half Marathon.

The Antrim Coast Half, which is sponsored by P&O, now hopes to follow this success when it is held on August 29 – slightly earlier than last year in order to avoid a clash with the Great North Run and, of course, the Olympics.

“It’ll probably be the first elite road race after the Olympics,” says McIlroy, “and it’s not often you get major athletics events in Northern Ireland.”

He adds: “We have the World Athletics Label status, which is brilliant, and we hope to build on the 60:27 (by Farah) and 71:36 (from Partridge) from last year.

“The course is very fast and it goes through an UNESCO World Heritage site. And hopefully it will be much better this year with the masses back.”

McIlroy reveals Farah fancied attacking his British record of 59:07 at the event last September and the organiser was lobbying for runners to attack the mark in the pre-race build up.

“I know Mo wanted to have a crack at the British record but it just turned into a race because Marc (Scott, the runner-up) is running very, very well. With Stephen Scullion taking it out and Ben Connor there too it was a class men’s race while Lily Partridge broke away to win the women’s race well.

“It turned out very well and it’s not often you get an out-and-out race at the head of the men’s event. In total 35 out of 62 runners ran PBs as well.”

What’s more, the masters sensation Tommy Hughes broke Martin Rees’ world half-marathon record for an M60 with 71:09.

READ MORE: Antrim Coast Half Marathon wins for Mo Farah and Lily Partridge

McIlroy adds the pandemic thwarted plans to bring international runners into the field last year but he is confident it will happen this year with Edward Cheserek, the multiple NCAA champion, being on his wish list. Cheserek was poised to run last year but could not make it due to travel problems.

“Last year we had buses from Scotland and all parts of Ireland ready to come and watch the race and we had to turn them away but we won’t be doing that this year,” says McIlroy. “There will be included a kids race, there’ll be a festival in the finish area and an after party. It’ll mean a lot more people around this year which will definitely help the times.”

As an 800m runner, McIlroy ran 1:44.65 in 2005 and among other things featured on the cover of AW. He was at St Mary’s University in Twickenham with Farah and his friendship with the multiple Olympic and world champion has clearly helped when it comes to enticing him to Northern Ireland.

McIlroy will hope Farah races at the Antrim Coast Half after the Tokyo Games, too, whereas he is also hoping Scott, Scullion, Partridge and Jo Pavey return – the latter of whom was disappointed to withdraw on the eve of the 2020 race with an injury.

“Lots of the road races are doing five, six, seven or eight loops but we’re doing one lap which is quite cool in this day and age,” says McIlroy. “We’re 12 miles from the Mull of Kintyre. There are 100m cliffs on your left. You’ve got a lot of iconic landmarks on the route.”

The area is indeed so stunning it has been used to film Game of Thrones. But McIlroy says: “Overall the vibe is the thing that is attracting people back for this year. We weren’t able to get the after party on last year but we’re trying to capture the similar kind of atmosphere that the Night of the 10,000m PBs has with its celebration of running.”

The Night of the 10,000m PBs has already succumbed to the pandemic in 2020, but it was due to be held in June whereas McIlroy’s event is almost three months later in the year and with athletes spread out over miles of road.

“Last year was great but it promises to be a different animal this year,” he says.

Great Britain's seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion Jamie Murray is in Melbourne for the Australian Open. In the first of his regular columns for BBC Sport, the Scot talks about arriving in a country where coronavirus has been contained, concerns over the tournament and his obsession with Football Manager.

These three weeks will probably be the best weeks we have on the tour for a while, so we're all ready to get stuck in.

Once we had completed our 14-day quarantine period it was weird getting out and going into this Covid-free world in Melbourne.

It just shows how your behaviours change depending on your set of conditions.

For the past year in Britain, we have had to wear masks all the time and not socialise with anyone other than our household.

On the streets back home, everyone has their head down and you body-swerve and scuttle past people.

Here, you can do pretty much what you want.

You still have to wear masks indoors in a public place. If you go to a restaurant you have to sign in at the door and in some of the restaurants you order online and they bring you the food.

Eating in restaurants gets taken for granted, especially when you're travelling to play tournaments, but I haven't been able to do that for ages.

When the ATP Tour resumed in August last year we weren't allowed out anywhere at events. It was just yourself and your team on the courts or in the hotel.

So to be able to go out and feel there is an atmosphere again is really nice.

You're able to mix with who you want here in Melbourne and you don't have to stay in your bubble. So I've been out with my friends that live here and the British guys are all planning to go out for a dinner before the Australian Open starts.

Seeing other people is a great feeling. Hopefully the restrictions back home will be able to be eased sooner rather than later so you can enjoy more freedom again too.

Having said that, I think the buzz of a Melbourne summer is still missing.

The city always has a fun vibe around the Australian Open which - in normal circumstances - takes place in the summer holidays here.

Melbourne Park is located right in the city centre, just a short walk along the Yarra River from Flinders Street station - the main train station - and Fed Square, which usually has a big fan park.

This year, everything definitely feels quieter. It seems like those who usually work in the city are still working at home, but I've not been out to the beach so I'm not sure how busy that is.

Either way, there is still a lot more activity here than there is at home in Britain.

Once these tournaments in Melbourne have finished we have got to go back to Europe and things will be very different again - either a lockdown or a tournament bubble.

So I want to go into the city a little bit more and to maximise the opportunity of having some freedom and relative normality.

'Everyone has been on edge after hotel scare'

There has been further disruption to the tournament this week with 160 players being told to isolate again until they had taken another coronavirus test and returned a negative result.

That news came on Wednesday night after a worker at one of the hotels where some of the players did their quarantine tested positive.

I wasn't in that hotel - the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne's Central Business District. I was staying in another hotel close to Albert Park, which is just outside the city centre and where the Formula 1 race is usually held.

Everyone who stayed in the Hyatt was a little bit on edge after that news. They had to get up on Thursday, take a test and wait for their result.

People were worried about what effect it would have on the Australian Open and whether they would have to go into quarantine again.

We know the government here could potentially shut down the tournament at any moment if things get out of control.

Thankfully all the tests came back negative and hopefully we can get on with things as planned.

What it is like travelling across the world in a pandemic

My preparations for the Australian Open started by leaving London in early January and training in Dubai for five days, before catching the chartered flight from there to Melbourne.

There was about 50 or 60 people on the flight, including players, coaches and staff from the Association of Tennis Professionals, Women's Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation. So it was pretty empty and there was loads of space.

When we arrived in Melbourne, there was a private terminal and we went through the arrival protocols in one big hanger.

Everyone there was wearing personal protective equipment - gloves, face masks, face shields, glasses. They were taking no risks.

Then we were transferred on to the buses to our hotels and the checking-in process was a strange situation.

Only one person could enter the hotel at a time, you gave your name at reception and then you were escorted to the lift. Someone opened the lift for you, you weren't allowed to touch the button, they radioed to a colleague to say you were going up to your floor, then a security guard on the floor met you and took you to the room.

We were in the room for two and a half days before we were allowed out. After that, we were allowed out for five hours each day.

We had an app on our phones where every night we would get our schedule for the next day.

Some mornings we practised from 7am to 9am so we'd get picked up outside the room door at 6.45am and escorted to the court for a two-hour session.

After that, someone would escort us to a gym pod and then back to the hotel for one hour of nutrition - again in your own pod. Then it was back to the room until you were allowed out the following day.

I was a lot luckier than most players. My flight didn't have any issues, so I didn't have to do a 'hard' quarantine and I had a good view out across the city.

But I still had plenty of time to pass particularly in those two and a half days where I couldn't leave the room. So I got back into playing Football Manager.

I hadn't played it for years. But with the detail the game goes into now you can kill so much time playing it.

You get so absorbed in it. I have even been watching YouTube videos about which players to sign and highlighting different tactics.

I've been managing AFC Wimbledon - I picked them because they are my local team - and I got them promoted to the Championship.

In fact, AFC Wimbledon are searching for a new manager in real life. Somehow I don't think this qualifies me to throw my hat into the ring... I'll stick to tennis!

Jamie Murray was talking to BBC Sport's Jonathan Jurejko

Serena Williams has withdrawn from her Yarra Valley Classic semi-final against world number one Ashleigh Barty with a right shoulder injury.

Australian Barty, who won 7-5 2-6 10-4 against American Shelby Rogers, has received a walkover into the final.

Williams will be seeking a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open.

The first Slam of the year begins on Monday and all six ATP and WTA warm-up events are being held at Melbourne Park.

Williams, 39, won her last major title at the Australian Open in 2017. She missed the 2018 competition and reached the quarter-finals in 2019, but fell in the third round last year.

Barty will play either Garbine Muguruza or Marketa Vondrousova in the final.

Spain's Muguruza thrashed Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin 6-2 6-2 in a rematch of last year's final.

America's Kenin made 28 unforced errors and left the court in tears after the 77-minute defeat.

Czech Vondrousova beat Nadia Podoroska of Argentina 3-6 6-3 10-4.

Third sets in the WTA are being played over a 10-point super tie-break following the delay to the tournaments because of Covid-19 testing.

Azarenka through but Halep out

Victoria Azarenka saved two match points in her first match of the year to beat Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva and reach the Grampians Trophy quarter-finals.

The Belarussian, who is a two-time Australian Open champion, overcame a dreadful second set to win 6-4 1-6 11-9.

She will play Estonia's Anett Kontaveit next after the sixth seed beat Bethanie Mattek-Sands 7-5 7-5.

Angelique Kerber, a former world number one and the 2016 champion at Melbourne Park, beat Ons Jabeur 6-4 6-4 to set up a quarter-final against Maria Sakkari.

However, top seed Simona Halep appeared to struggle with a lower back problem as she lost her Gippsland Trophy quarter-final.

Two-time Grand Slam champion Halep won the first two games of the match against Ekaterina Alexandrova before the Russian breezed past her 6-2 6-1.

Halep received medical attention after the first set and was given a lower back brace but her movement and power was lacking throughout the match.

Alexandrova will play Kaia Kanepi of Estonia in the semi-finals.

Japan's Naomi Osaka, who is one of the favourites for the Australian Open title, advanced with a 7-5 6-1 win over Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania.

Dan Evans and Cameron Norrie will play one another in the first round of the Australian Open.

In the women's draw, Francesca Jones will make her Grand Slam main-draw debut against American Shelby Rogers.

British number one Johanna Konta, seeded 13th, will face Slovenian qualifier Kaja Juvan first.

The Australian Open - the first Grand Slam of the year - begins on Monday.

The draw was delayed by 24 hours, along with the six warm-up events that are taking place at Melbourne Park, but organisers are "absolutely confident" the Slam will go ahead.

The 507 people who were retested for coronavirus after a hotel worker contracted it have all returned negative tests.

Who are the Britons facing?

Jones, ranked 245th, earned her place in Melbourne by winning three qualifying matches in Dubai last month.

The 20-year-old has a rare genetic condition called ectrodactyly ectodermal dysplasia syndrome, which means she was born with three fingers and a thumb on each hand, three toes on her right foot and four toes on her left.

Jones was told she would never play professional tennis but she has defied doctors, playing with a light racquet and very small grip to increase her control.

Heather Watson will play Czech Kristyna Pliskova, who she beat in the first round of last year's tournament, while Katie Boulter meets Russian Daria Kasatkina.

Boulter is using her protected ranking to compete in Melbourne after a lengthy lay-off with a back injury.

Evans and Norrie have been team-mates at the ATP Cup and Davis Cup but have never met in a singles match at ATP level.

Evans, seeded 30th, or Norrie could face world number two Rafael Nadal in the third round.

What about the big names?

In the men's draw, Serbia's world number one Novak Djokovic starts his bid for a record-extending ninth Australian Open title against French veteran Jeremy Chardy.

Djokovic is in the same half of the draw as US Open champion Dominic Thiem, who he beat in last year's Melbourne final.

Austrian Thiem will begin his campaign against Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin.

Spanish rival Nadal's preparations for his bid to land a men's record 21st Grand Slam singles title - which would move him clear of Roger Federer - have been hampered by a back injury this week.

The 34-year-old will play Laslo Djere of Serbia in the opening round.

In the women's draw, American great Serena Williams starts against Germany's Laura Siegemund as she launches another attempt to win a record-equalling 24th major singles title.

She could meet Naomi Osaka - widely considered a favourite for the title - in the semi-finals, but the Japanese has a tricky match first up against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

World number one Ashleigh Barty will play her first Grand Slam match in a year against Danka Kovinic of Montenegro.

American defending champion Sofia Kenin begins against Australian wildcard Maddison Inglis, while Canadian eighth seed Bianca Andreescu is set to begin her first tournament since October 2019 against Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania.

Andreescu, the 2019 US Open champion, withdrew from the warm-up tournaments but has said the move was just a precaution after two weeks of quarantine.

Wales players have been given the all-clear to face Ireland in the Six Nations on Sunday after a second round of negative Covid-19 test results.

The squad returned negative tests on Tuesday and reported a repeat of that on Friday morning.

Wales return to Cardiff's Principality Stadium for the tournament opener.

The game will be played behind closed doors with no fans present.

Wayne Pivac's side played their 2020 autumn internationals at Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli when the Principality Stadium was being used as a field hospital to help cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

Scotland's forwards must give Finn Russell the platform to "open his box of tricks" if Gregor Townsend's men are to beat England, says Adam Hastings.

They were denied victory at the death on their last visit in 2019 after Russell had orchestrated a stunning fightback from 31-0 down.

"There's a lot of flair in that back-line," said Hastings.

"I think if our pack goes well and gets going, we should be very dangerous.

"If Scotland manage to front up in that set-piece area and get good front-foot ball for the likes of Finn and Hoggy [Stuart Hogg], I think you'll see Scotland go well.

"If Finn gets front-foot ball and he's got all these game-breakers, these weapons to use, then he's going to use them well. Hopefully he'll open his box of tricks and others around him will do the same."

With no crowd in attendance, the Scots will not have the vocal home support to contend with that has so often seem them wilt under the pressure in the past 38 years.

Hastings, who started four of Scotland's five matches in the 2020 Six Nations following Russell's well-publicised fall-out with head coach Gregor Townsend but is currently injured, says that makes it "completely different".

"It will still feel like an away game, but without crowds it's much less of an advantage playing at your home ground," he said.

"They'll be excited to go down there and if there's a time to end that unbeaten run for England, then this is definitely it.

"A lot of the English boys haven't played too much - especially those Saracens lads - so potentially there's an opportunity to catch them there, so fingers crossed."

A shoulder injury suffered in the final match of the 2020 Six Nations against Wales has seen Hastings sidelined since October.

Having recently announced he will join English Premiership side Gloucester in the summer, the Glasgow fly-half is now back training and has not given up hope of playing some part in the Six Nations.

"I'm hoping so. I'm not taking anything for granted," Hastings said on the BBC Scotland Rugby Podcast.

"When I get the all-clear, I've got to play well. I can't turn up the day, play all right and expect to be called up.

"It's given me that extra motivation to hopefully put on a Scotland shirt in the Six Nations this year."

The president of Italian Serie C side Novara has resigned after police stopped him with a bag containing €2000,000 ($240,000), which he could not explain.

Marcello Cianci, 50, was detained by the financial police in the southern region of Reggio Calabria and the money was seized.

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Reports in Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport suggest Cianci was "inexplicably anxious" when he was stopped by the police, which left with them no alternative but to search his car.

Shortly after the incident, Cianci announced his resignation as Novara president, where he had been since 2019.

"Novara Calcio communicate it has received the resignation of Mr. Marcello Cianci as president and delegation administer of the club for personal and professional commitments," a Novara statement read.

"The members will convene a board of directors to elect a new appointment.

"With regards to news stories which are currently circling, Novara Calcio totally distances itself from these strange facts, which regard extremely personal incidents and are not linked to his work related within the club."

Novara are 15th in the Serie C Group A table.

Artificial intelligence can drive a car, curate the films and documentaries that you watch, develop chess programmes capable of beating grandmasters and use your face to access your phone. And, one company claims, it can also predict when footballers are about to suffer an injury.

Off the field, football has gone through a huge transformation in the 21st century, with the emergence of GPS-driven player performance data in the early 2000s, followed in the 2010s by the advanced analytics that now form a major part of every top club's player recruitment strategy. Just last month, Manchester City announced the appointment of Laurie Shaw to a new post of lead AI scientist at the Etihad Stadium, taking him from his role as research scientist and lecturer at Harvard University.

Football has always searched out innovations to make small, but crucial, differences. Many have become staples of the game, including TechnoGym to improve biomechanics, IntelliGym to improve cognitive processing and cryogenic gym sessions to ease the strain on muscles. Others have fallen by the wayside. Anyone remember nasal strips or the ball-bending properties of Predator boots?

The use of AI to predict when players are on the brink of suffering an injury could prove to be the next game-changing innovation that becomes a key component at the elite end of the game.

In a game dominated by clubs wanting to discover the extra 1% in marginal gains, keeping a player fit is arguably the most important challenge facing any coach. A depleted squad can lead to negative results and, if a team suffers too many, the manager or coach is generally the one who pays the price. This season has been more challenging than most, with the COVID-19 pandemic leading to fixtures being crammed into a reduced time frame, and players being forced to play 2-3 games a week on a regular basis.

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The toll on players' fitness is borne out by the injury lists. Crystal Palace and Southampton fulfilled their midweek Premier League fixtures with 10 first-team squad members sidelined. Champions Liverpool lost to Brighton on Wednesday with eight absentees, including long-term injury victims Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip. Research by premierinjuries.com shows that up to and including match-week 21 of the Premier League this season, there has been a five percent increase in time lost to injuries this season. At the same stage last season, there were 356 "time-loss absences" (a player missing at least one league game), but the number has jumped to 374 this time around. With COVID-related absences, the number is 435.

Liverpool had suffered 14 time-loss absences at this stage of last season, but they're now up to 29 in 2020-21. Their league position -- fourth place, seven points adrift of top spot -- suggests they are paying a price for their sharp increase in players lost to injury.

But finding reliable injury prevention technology is the holy grail of sports scientists and fitness coaches. By November, ESPN reported a 16% rise in muscle injuries in the Premier League compared to the same stage last season. So can AI successfully predict when players are about to be injured?

Since the start of the 2017-18 season, La Liga side Getafe have partnered with the California-based AI company Zone7 to break down performance data and predict when players are at risk of injury. In simple terms, clubs like Getafe in Spain, Scottish Premiership leaders Rangers and MLS sides Real Salt Lake and Toronto FC send their training and match data to Zone7, who analyze it using their algorithm and send back daily emails with information about players who may be straying close to the so-called "danger zone."

Between the start of the 2017-18 season and March 2020, when La Liga was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Getafe recorded a substantial reduction in injuries.

"Three seasons ago, during the first year with Zone7, we saw a reduction of 40% in injury volume," Javier Vidal, the Getafe's Head of Performance, said. "As the Zone7 engine became more reliable and we had access to more data in the second year, we saw a reduction of 66 percent in the volume of injuries.

"This means that of every three injuries we had two seasons ago, we now have only one."

Jordi Cruyff, the former Barcelona and Manchester United midfielder, told ESPN that he has become a "minor, minor investor" in Zone7 after trialling the AI tool during his time as sporting director at Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2017. But he admits that he was only convinced by the AI technology after monitoring the data, even though Maccabi's then-coach declined to use it.

"I presented the tool to our then-coach and he wasn't too interested." Cruyff told ESPN. "So for the four to five months the coach was in charge, he would follow his own plan, but we would still give our performance data to the company, which they would run through their algorithm. I would then receive an email before training each day with which players were at risk and it actually predicted five of seven injuries.

"I thought 'wow.' Once or twice could be a coincidence, but catching five out of seven muscular injuries is a different thing. I would wait until after training to be told if a player had been injured. I would then go back to look at my email and there was the name. We were lucky in some ways that the coach wasn't interested in it because it gave us the chance to test it.

"It was the perfect test, although I wish the coach would have listened, because then we would have avoided some injuries."

Tal Brown, who founded Zone7 with Eyal Eliakim in 2017 having worked together in the Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence Corps, spoke to ESPN to explain how AI can be used to detect injury risk.

"Every single player is now using a GPS vest, they are being tested for strength and flexibility at their clubs, many teams distribute watches to their players to measure sleep, so the reality is that somebody working for a club needs to look at two dozen dashboards every day -- multiplied by 20 players, multiplied by six days a week," Brown said via Zoom. "It is becoming a puzzle that a human brain wasn't really meant to solve.

"We can use a chess metaphor. Chess programmes used to be pretty simplistic and the experts could beat them, but today, a Google chess programme is unbeatable. It's not because Google has taught that chess programme 10,000 equations manually, it is because the programme has automatically studied every recorded chess game played in the history of mankind and, using AI, has developed its own understanding and interpretation.

"We are not there yet as a company. We don't have access to every single football injury that ever occurred, but we are getting much better and there will be a point where a programme focused on injury risk will out-perform humans in interpreting data."

More than 50 clubs across the world now use Zone7's AI programme. Many wish to remain anonymous, in an effort to protect any competitive advantage that the tool may provide -- football clubs are notoriously protective of such proprietary data -- while others simply do not wish to discuss any pros or cons they have discovered while using it. Despite repeated attempts by ESPN to speak to Real Salt Lake and Toronto, neither MLS team responded to enquiries.

Rangers, 23 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership and on course for a first domestic title since 2011, adopted Zone7's AI tool last summer and, while keen to make a broader assessment after a full season of use, they believe it's been a valuable addition to their injury prevention strategy.

"I believe AI, coupled with the experience levels of those using it, will eventually become a bedrock within clubs' decision-making as data and technology advances," Jordan Milsom, Rangers' head of performance told ESPN. "Given our players had been exposed to one of the longest lockdowns of all [93 days] and the unknowns associated with such prolonged layoffs, we felt investing in such a system may well provide another layer of support for how we managed the players on what would clearly be a challenging season.

"We haven't used the system long enough compare season-to-season analysis, and it's important to understand we are a department that is data-informed and not data-driven. But it is my opinion that if such systems are used in this way, it can have many positive benefits."

Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has praised the club's fitness and sports science department, saying in December that the team were enabling his players to "hit top numbers," and Milson says that the AI data is helping to inform player rotation, even to the extent of highlighting which players should be substituted during games.

"All of our GPS and heart rate training load data from sessions and games is uploaded automatically into the Zone7 system," Milsom said. "The platform digests this, performs its modelling and provides us with risk alerts each day for players.

"Generally, there would be 1-2 players who may be flagged [for further monitoring]. Sometimes, these flags relate to overload -- other times it's under-load. This allows us to have a deeper dive into why specifically they are at risk. This information will feed into our general staff discussions to determine if any further areas support this information. As we typically compete every 3-4 days, if risk is associated with overload, I can often use that information to help support in-game substitutions as a means of maximising player availability, whilst potentially reducing risk through reduced minutes if and when possible."

The key to the success of the AI tool is the amount of data Zone7 are able to upload and analyse. While Brown stresses that "nobody ever sees your data. We don't own it and we're not allowed to retain a copy of it, post-relationship, so it's very strict," the volume of information provided by each client club is used to create a huge database that then enables the programme to predict injury risk.

"We can use 200 million hours of football data because we are working with 50-60 clients," Brown said. "As a result, we have 50-60 times more data than a typical team has, so the data set is very large. But what is important is that it's not just the injury in the sense of the date it occurred and what happened, it is every single day of training and games and medical data leading to the injury, going back as much as a year prior.

"That amount of information gives us the ability to look at the daily data leading to an incident and, using AI and deep learning, to find patterns that repeat themselves before hamstring injuries or groin injuries or knee injuries happen. That's how it works.

"If you are trying to forecast an event, which is an injury, you need to have a big database of incidents. A typical team would have something like 30-40 incidents a year for a squad, so multiply that by several years of historical data."

ESPN has spoken to people in sports science who believe that AI is a positive innovation if used alongside existing methods. "Their results are impressive," said one sports scientist, who has worked with several Premier League clubs in the past and spoke on condition of not being named. "The issue is the level of individualisation with injury results is high, so lots of variant data only gives you a small answer. Therefore, it definitely has to be a blended approach."

Zone7's AI tool is not restricted to sports. In tandem with Garmin wearable devices and Zone7, medical staff in Israel are having their health and well-being monitored during the COVID-19 pandemic and there is a similar project with a major hospital in New York City. There are also projects ongoing with military and special forces. In football, however, Getafe are the best example of AI being used successfully to improve the fitness record of a team, as explained by head of performance Vidal.

"It would take 200 people all day to analyse the data, but with this, I get the recommendations within minutes." Vidal said. "We use our own high-quality ultrasound to clinically to evaluate players that show predefined risk indications. After starting to use Zone7, some players would report feeling fine despite the engine identifying immediate risk for them.

"In many cases, our ultrasound tests confirmed muscular damage, allowing us to address this before the injury occurred. These players could have sustained injury but for the AI detection."

Cruyff, now coaching in China with Shenzhen FC, believes AI can become a key component for teams, but he makes clear that AI alone cannot be regarded as the silver bullet to prevent all injuries.

"It's not a deciding tool," he said. "You can see a risk of injury and decide to take the risk or not. It's part of the modernisation of sport. You have so many things -- video analysts, GPS tracking devices -- and I think this is a part that maybe we missed, but it is coming, little by little."