Three League of Ireland teams were in Europa League action last night - Cork City and St Patrick's both lost at home while a late equaliser gave Shamrock Rovers a draw in Norway. Emmet Malone was at Richmond Park where St Pat's extra effort was not enough in a 2-0 defeat against Norrkoping, from Sweden. Cork City have been left with a similar mountain to climb in their away leg, after losing 2-0 at home to Progrès Niederkorn from Luxembourg. There was some joy for Shamrock Rovers fans though as Roberto Lopes' header at the death gave them a draw against SK Brann, and two away goals to bring back to Tallaght.
Ahead of this weekend's hurling quarter-finals - when Cork take on Kilkenny and Laois face Tipperary - Jackie Tyrrell writes about his old team mate and the man who has brought Laois to the last eight. He describes Eddie Brennan as being "calm and almost like a daddy figure to us. You always felt safe around him. That was off the pitch. On it was a different story." The Roscommon County Board will be operating off reduced ticket availability at Dr Hyde Park for Saturday evening's opening game in the All-Ireland football quarter-final Super-8s against Tyrone. You can follow all of this weekend's football and hurling action with our liveblogs, from 4.30pm on Saturday and 1.30pm on Sunday.
Serena Williams wasted no time in reaching the Wimbledon final yesterday - bringing her within a match of equaling the record of Margaret Court's 24 Grand Slam singles' wins and becoming the oldest Grand Slam finalist in Open Era history. This afternoon in the men's semi-final Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer go head to head in a Zeus v Hercules clash. Johnny Watterson writes from Wimbledon, "there will be no changing of the guard. They are past that. Both different, they meet as equals." Their match is at 3pm.
Meanwhile, Dan Martin has climbed from 35th to 18th overall in the Tour de France. He is one minute and 46 seconds behind the new race leader Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo). Nicolas Roche finished 79th on the stage and slipped to 51st overall. Belgian rider Dylan Teuns won the first mountain stage of Tour on Thursday after going clear in a large breakaway group.
