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Fri/Sat/Sun July 7~ 9, 2017

SPANISH club Barcelona con-fi rmed Wednesday that Lionel Messi has agreed a new contract, which will keep him at the club until the end of June 2021.

By then, Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer will be 34 years old and fi nishing his 17th season with the club.

Barcelona said that Messi will sign the new deal “in the coming weeks” that will be good through June 30, 2021.

The contract extension comes as no surprise. Messi has repeat-edly said he wanted to play the best years of his career at Bar-celona, before perhaps making a return to his native Argentina that he left at 13 years old to come to Barcelona’s famed La Masia training academy.

But with his current contract set to expire at the end of the upcoming 2017-18 season, the club’s board, players, fans and new coach Ernesto Valverde can all breathe easier this summer knowing their star is staying put.

Barcelona released a statement in English calling Messi “the best player in history, who has played his full professional career at Barca and has led the team to an era of extraordinary success, the likes of which has never been seen in world football.”

No fi nancial details of Messi’s new contact were disclosed, but Spain’s Marca sports daily reported that the deal included a 300-million euro (US$340-million) termination clause.

Under his current contract Messi earns around 20 million euros a year in salary, according to Spanish media — and this didn’t include millions of euros in revenues earned from ads and performance-linked bonuses.

Since making his debut with Barcelona’s fi rst team at age 17 in 2004, Messi has established himself as one of the best to ever play the game. He has won the FIFA World Player of the Year fi ve times, and has become the Spanish league’s all-time lead-ing scorer.

Messi has scored a club-record 507 goals in 583 matches. His honors with the club include four UEFA Champions League trophies, eight Spanish league titles and fi ve Copa del Rey titles. (SD-Agencies)

ARSENAL has completed the signing of Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon, reportedly for a club-record fee.

The 26-year-o ld ’s long-awaited arrival was o f f i c i a l l y announced Wednesday, the striker signing a long- term deal after the Gunners paid a fee believed to be in the region of 60 million Euros (US$68 million).

That sum outstrips the 44 mil-lion Euros Arsenal paid to Real Madrid for Mesut Ozil in 2013.

“The deal is subject to the completion of regulatory pro-cesses,” Arsenal said in a brief statement.

Lacazette arrives on the back of his most prolifi c season, scor-ing 37 goals in 45 games across all competitions.

His arrival at Emirates Sta-dium may well pave the way for Olivier Giroud to leave, though the striker has expressed a desire to stay despite being linked to Marseille, West Ham and Ever-ton. (SD-Agencies)

ON the fi rst mountain climb of the 104th Tour de France, after the lower altitudes where Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan were forced out of the race — the fi rst with a broken shoulder, the second disqualifi ed — Italy’s Fabio Aru showed Wednesday he could be the man to beat by leaving three-time champion Chris Froome in his wake.

Making up for the bitterness in May of missing his home grand tour, the Giro d’Italia, Aru zoomed away from Froome and other top riders yearning to ride into Paris in the yellow jersey July 23. The punishing climb to the Planches des Belles Filles ski station in eastern France’s Vosges mountains was made to look like a mere speed bump.

Froome played down Aru’s show of strength in winning stage fi ve, noting there are still 16 more days of racing to go. But the 32-year-old veteran also acknowledged making a rookie’s mistake by not react-ing quickly enough when the 26-year-old Sardinian slammed on his pedals.

Along the steep crowd-lined hairpin bends through dense pines, Aru rose from his saddle and rocked powerfully from side to side as he gobbled up the mountain.

“This is going to be the hard-

PENG SHUAI became the only Chinese player to reach the third round of the Wimbledon Open after beating Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-2, 6-2 Wednesday.

In the past, Navarro and Peng met four times as both won 2 of matches. Navarro is 25th in the standings of WTA, while Peng is ranked 37th.

Peng will play against Simona Halep in the next round.

Another Chinese player, Wang Qiang, lost to Venus Williams on Wednesday.

Williams fought back from a set down to overcome the determined challenge of the Chinese as the American set a new Wimbledon landmark.

The 37-year-old, a fi ve-time winner at the All England Club, wrapped up a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 second-round success to mark her 97th main-draw match at the grass-court Grand Slam — a record for an active player.

The pair also met in the fi rst round of the French Open, when Williams — who has endured an emotional week amid ques-tions over her involvement in a fatal road accident — prevailed in straight sets, but it was a tougher test on this occasion against the world number 55.

Wang fought back from 0-40 down to hold in only her second service game and showed her resilience again when she was broken in game six, hitting back immediately.

The Chinese continued the theme of producing the goods

at just the right time, sending down an ace to deny Williams a break that would have left her serving for the set.

And it was the underdog who ultimately got that honor when a wayward Williams forehand gave Wang the break, which was cemented with a hold that afforded her a one-set lead.

Williams, who reached the Australian Open fi nal this year before losing to sister Serena, refused to wilt and quickly put pressure on her opponent’s serve.

That fi nally paid dividends when Wang was serving to stay in the second set, with a deft Williams drop shot setting up three break points, the last of which was taken with a precise passing effort.

In the decider, it was Wil-liams who moved up a gear as her variety of shot-making came to the fore to set up a third-round match against Naomi Osaka.

On the men’s side, defending champion Andy Murray and 10-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal both moved to the third at Wimbledon with a straight-set wins.

World No. 1 Murray took only one hour and 36 minutes to beat Germany’s Dustin Brown 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 while Nadal, who from 2012 to 2015 was defeated by players ranked respectively by No. 100, No. 135, No. 144 and No. 102, beat American Donald Young 6-4, 6-2, 7-5

Peng reaches Wimbledon 3rd round

to reach the last 32 for merely the second time since he was runner-up to Novak Djokovic here in 2011.

“Until right at the end of the

match, the last three games when I didn’t serve particularly well, the rest of the match I served well,” Murray said.

(SD-Agencies)

Arsenal signs record deal for Lacazette

Alexandre Lacazette

Messi agrees new Barca contract

Lionel Messi

Aru wins in fi rst mountain stage of Tour

est-fought battle I’ve had,” Froome said. “We defi nitely cannot give Fabio that kind of space again.”

Wednesday’s ride started in the spa town of Vittel which, like Froome, has seen better days — with shuttered hotels fallen into disrepair.

At the foot of the fi nishing climb, everything seemed to be going to plan for Froome. His Sky teammates were powering up the ascent ahead of him, leading their champion up at a fi erce pace aimed at dissuading other riders from attacking.

Aru hadn’t read the script.He was lucid enough when

powering away to yell at a road-side spectator who got too close to him and to toss a water bottle at the feet of another. He still had energy to spare at the top to fi nish with a sprint.

When Froome fi nally reacted, upping his tempo, it was already too late: Aru was gone.

“When he left, I stayed with my team and waited for the attack from the others,” Froome said. “But no one moved. I thought, ‘OK, I have to go, what can I do?’”

“There’s a fl at before the last climb and perhaps we waited too long there.”

(SD-Agencies)

Astana rider Fabio Aru of Italy on his way to win stage fi ve of the Tour de France on Wednesday. SD-Agencies

China’s Peng Shuai in action against Suarez Navarro of Spain at the Wimbledon Open on Wednesday. SD-Agencies