ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Texas Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien has a broken bone and a sprained ligament in his left foot that will almost certainly end his regular season.
Manager Bruce Bochy said Monday that the recovery timeline is four to six weeks for the injury that occurred when he fouled a pitch off the top of his foot in Kansas City on Thursday.
“Just bad luck, bad news,” Bochy said. “Nothing you can do. You get some of the other injuries, you wonder if you could have done something different, but this, that’s just bad luck. ... Must have caught him just right.”
Texas placed Semien on the injured list for only the second time in his 13 MLB seasons on Saturday while still trying to determine the extent of the injury. His only other time on the IL came with the Athletics, when he missed nearly three months of the 2017 season because of a right wrist injury.
Semien saw a foot specialist Sunday, and afterward told reporters that he would be out some time but didn't think he would need surgery. That came after inconclusive results from an X-ray in Kansas City, followed by MRI and CT scans after getting back to Texas.
The Rangers play their regular-season finale at Cleveland on Sept. 28, which is five weeks away. They went into the opener of a three-game series against the Angels on Monday night 4 1/2 games back for the American League's final wild card.
“Hopefully we get back in this race and we’ll see where we’re at by that time,” Semien told the Dallas Morning News and MLB.com on Sunday. “I’m gonna be watching for a little while here. The (ligament) is what we’re most worried about, just trying to keep it intact by staying off of it. If you tear that, then it could be a year. I’m just trying to keep that intact and let the other fracture heal.”
Before the injury, Semien had missed only six of the Rangers’ 615 games since joining them before the 2022 season on a $175 million, seven-year contract. The 34-year-old Semien hit .230 with 15 homers, 62 RBIs and a team-leading 62 runs in 127 games this year.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
Texas Rangers' Marcus Semien runs home to score on a three-run double hit by Kyle Higashioka during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Coco Gauff and Venus Williams could meet in the second round of the Australian Open, another potential chapter in a tennis tale that started with a 15-year-old on her Grand Slam debut beating a seven-time major winner at Wimbledon.
Gauff thanked Williams for being such an inspiration for her career after that win at the All England Club in 2019, saying “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.”
She followed it up with a first-round win at the Australian Open in 2020.
Now she’s the No. 3 seed and a two-time major winner. The 45-year-old Williams has a wild-card entry for the Australian Open, where she’s playing for the first time in five years.
The tournament starts Sunday at Melbourne Park. When the draw was conducted Thursday, Gauff was drawn to open against No. 91-ranked Kamilla Rakhimova and No. 576-ranked Williams — who made her Australian Open debut in 1998 and has twice reached the final — was drawn to face No. 68-ranked Olga Danilovic in the first round.
Williams is set to become the oldest woman to compete in an Australian Open main draw, surpassing the record previously held by Japan’s Kimiko Date, who was 44 when she lost in the first round at Melbourne Park in 2015.
To have any chance of facing Gauff again, she needs to do something she hasn't done in 2026: record a win. In the last two weeks, Williams played tournaments in New Zealand and in Hobart, losing in the first round at both.
After a 6-4, 6-3 win over Williams on Tuesday, Tatjana Maria said it was a tough one because “everyone loves Venus. I love her, too."
Gauff and Williams are in the same half of the draw as top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, who won back-to-back Australian Open titles before losing last year's final to Madison Keys.
Sabalenka, who opened her season with a title in Brisbane last week, has a potential third-round meeting against 2021 U.S. Open winner Emma Raducanu.
Defending champion Keys, who lost her quarterfinal match at the Adelaide International to rising Canadian star Victoria Mboko in three sets on Thursday, was drawn into the same quarter as No. 6 Jessica Pegula, and No. 4 Amanda Anisimova.
No. 2-ranked Iga Świątek, seeking a career Grand Slam with her first title at Melbourne Park, is in the bottom quarter on that side of the draw and has a potential fourth-round match against four-time major winner Naomi Osaka.
Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic landed in the same half of the draw, setting up a potential semifinal between the defending champion and the 24-time major winner.
Djokovic, who has won 10 Australian titles but hasn't gone past the semifinals at Melbourne Park since 2023, played an exhibition against Frances Tiafoe on Rod Laver Arena hours after the draw was made. He withdrew last week from a warmup tournament in Adelaide to give himself more time to be ready for the Open.
Top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz is on the opposite side to Sinner and Djokovic, and has Tiafoe and local hope and sixth-seeded Alex De Minaur in his quarter of the draw.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Coco Gauff of the United States plays a forehand return during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
