PARIS: Paris Saint-Germain striker Ousmane Dembélé has recovered from a slight hamstring problem and will be in the squad taking on Arsenal in the second leg of their Champions League semifinal on Wednesday.
Coach Luis Enrique said Dembélé, who scored the winner in PSG’s 1-0 win in London last week, has been training with his teammates for two days.
“I have him at my disposal tomorrow,” Enrique said on Tuesday.
Dembélé was injured during the first leg and rested over the weekend when PSG lost to Strasbourg 2-1 in Ligue 1. Enrique heavily rotated his squad with the match against the Gunners in mind.
Dembélé’s goal against Arsenal was his eighth in nine Champions League appearances since the start of the year.
According to UEFA statistics, PSG have won 18 of the 19 ties in which they won a first leg away, while Arsenal have never overturned a home first leg defeat in European competition, losing all five ties. Enrique, however, isn’t counting on history ahead of the match at the Parc des Princes.
“We’re bound to suffer because our opponents don’t have a favorable result,” Enrique told reporters. “We need to match our performance as closely as possible in the first leg to win the return leg and stay true to our ideas.”
Both teams are looking for a first Champions League title, and second final. PSG lost to Borussia Dortmund at this stage last year. The French side lost to Bayern Munich in their only Champions League final in 2020, while Arsenal were runner-up to Barcelona in 2006.

MILAN: Jannik Sinner is the star of the show at the upcoming Rome Open as the world No. 1 and Italian tennis hero gears up for his return to the courts after a contested doping ban.

Away from the game since agreeing a suspension with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in February, Sinner was welcomed back to action on Monday by thousands of fans who watched his first training session at the tournament on center court at the Foro Italico.

Such is the interest in Sinner, who has become a national hero in Italy since rising to the top of the men’s game, that Sky Sport broadcast the practice match with world No. 38 Jiri Lehecka live on television.

All eyes will be on the 23-year-old as he hasn’t swung a racket since retaining his Australian Open title in January, a victory which took his Grand Slam tally to three.

“I’m very happy, happy to be back here. It has been a very long, long three months,” Sinner told reporters in a packed conference room inside the center court.

Fans in Rome have waited two years to see Sinner play their clay court tournament after he missed last year’s edition, won by Alexander Zverev, with injury.

It is on a surface which is not his favorite and his rustiness was clear to see on Monday.

Only one of Sinner’s 19 titles has come on clay, in Umag back in 2022, the same year as his best result in Rome, a quarter-final exit at the hands of beaten finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.

However he does have some time before he finally takes to the court, his status as the top-ranked player on the men’s tour allowing him a bye into the second round which starts on Friday.

Sinner has been fortunate that none of his rivals took advantage of his enforced pause, with second-ranked Zverev still almost 2,000 points behind the man who beat him in the Australian Open final.

Meanwhile, Carlos Alcaraz is yet to arrive in Rome after withdrawing from the Madrid Open while Novak Djokovic will have to wait a bit longer for his 100th ATP title after deciding to sit out a tournament he has won six times.

Sinner is eyeing a run at the French Open, the second Slam of the season which follows the Rome tournament.

“My objective is Roland Garros, I’m here to see what level I’m at,” said Sinner.

“I’m not here to beat whoever, but to get past the second round and then see what happens.”

Sinner’s rise to the top of the game in 2024, when he won eight titles including his first two Slams and the ATP Finals, was dogged by the controversy which followed his two positive tests for traces of clostebol in March last year.

He said last month he hit “rock bottom” at the most recent Australian Open, saying he felt like other players “looked at me differently.”

Sinner was aggrieved as he feels he did nothing wrong, and WADA said explicitly he “did not intend to cheat,” accepting he was contaminated by his physiotherapist using a spray containing the banned substance to treat a cut before providing a massage.

Regardless, he also had to accept the three-month ban offered by WADA, rather than risk being forced out of tennis for two years just as he became the dominant force in men’s tennis.

“I didn’t want to do it in the beginning. It was a bit not easy for me to accept it because I know what really happened,” said Sinner.

“But sometimes you have to choose the best in a very bad moment. And that’s what we did. It’s all over now, so I’m happy to play again.”