Follow this afternoon’s football, including two FA Cup first-round ties, in our live blog.

Local fan favourite Alexandra Eala had to dig deep amid stops and starts to earn a hard-fought 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Maria Sakkari on Saturday, booking her place in the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open final. The evenly matched semi-final between the two seeded players was filled with extraordinary shots from both players, and a lot of rainwater and match suspensions. “I think it was just blank [during those rain stops], it took a lot of patience, but a lot, a lot, a lot of people stayed,...

Bailee Brown said she retained her passion for “brutal and unforgiving” triathlon, but there were “things to sort out” after the Hongkonger’s subpar home World Triathlon Cup performance on Saturday. Managing a stress fracture of her left calf bone, Brown paid heavily for missing her bike in transition following the swim, losing touch with the main pack and coming home 50th in 59 minutes and 34 seconds. The reliably tenacious Hilda Choi Yan-yin placed 37th in 58:06, with Cade Wright 39th in...

When Emeric Payer plunged into the pitch-black waters of Victoria Harbour at 4am on Monday, his coaches’ old jokes about his endurance were still fresh in his mind. A former competitive pool sprinter in the 50-metre freestyle, the 21-year-old was known to fade minutes into longer distance swimming events. But this changed when he completed a solo, unassisted 45-kilometre circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island in the record time of 10 hours, 22 minutes and 59 seconds. The Hong Kong-French swimmer...