The 27-year-old Romanian beat Sloane Stephens at Roland Garros to win her maiden Grand Slam title in June and will have spent 40 weeks at the top of the rankings by the end of the season.
* World champions the United States will have a chance to defend their title at the 2019 Women's World Cup after a 6-0 win over Jamaica in the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Championship on Sunday sealed their qualification. In the other semi-final in Texas, Canada also grabbed their spot in next year's tournament in France with a 7-0 victory over Panama.
* Belgium defender Thomas Vermaelen has suffered another injury blow and will be out of action for several weeks after straining an adductor muscle on international duty. The 32-year-old would miss Tuesday’s friendly against the Netherlands in Brussels, Belgian FA officials said in a media advisory on Monday.
* Former US Open champion Sloane Stephens has qualified for her first season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore, the WTA Tour said on Monday. Stephens joins fellow Grand Slam champions Simona Halep, Angelique Kerber, Naomi Osaka, Petra Kvitova and Caroline Wozniacki in the singles field for the Oct 21 to Oct 28 event.
* Two former heads of the German Football Association and two other officials will not go on trial for suspected tax evasion over a payment ahead of the 2006 World Cup hosted by Germany, Frankfurt's regional court said on Monday. Former DFB chiefs Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach as well as fellow former DFB General Secretary Horst Schmidt and a former world soccer body FIFA official were charged in June. But the regional court said it had "not seen enough suspicion of wrongdoing" to warrant a trial.
* The Football Association strongly condemned violent disturbances in Seville on Sunday, less than a day before England play Spain in the Nations League, and has vowed to sanction any supporter found to be responsible. Video footage on social media appeared to show large groups brandishing tables and chairs on one of Seville's main shopping streets. Some were also shown vandalising cars.
* McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne will switch to the all-electric Formula E series at the end of the Formula One season, the Mercedes-affiliated HWA RACELAB team said on Monday. HWA said the 26-year-old Belgian will join Britain's Gary Paffett, 37, who won his second German Touring Cars championship with Mercedes at the weekend.
* UEFA will increase its funding for women's soccer development projects across Europe by 50 percent from 2020, the continent's governing body announced on Monday. As part of UEFA's HatTrick scheme to provide assistance to its 55-member associations, the Women's Football Development Programme currently pays 100,000 euros per year to each nation for development projects. This figure will now rise to 150,000 euros.
* The only Israeli Olympic gold medal winner ever, Gal Fridman, announced on Monday that he would sell the medal at an auction. The 43-year-old Fridman also plans to sell the windsurfer with which he won the gold medal at the sailing competition of 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
* Both Japan and the United States suffered their second straight loss in the third round of the FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship in Nagoya on Monday, sending China, the Netherlands, Serbia, Italy to the semifinals.
