AUTO RACING

NASCAR superstar Chase Elliott had successful surgery for an unspecified injury to his left leg, hours after a snowboarding accident in Colorado. He will miss this weekend’s NASCAR race at Las Vegas.

Team owner Rick Hendrick told The Associated Press that Elliott was “just out of surgery” and “it went well.” Hendrick gave no additional details about Elliott’s condition or the accident.

Hendrick is NASCAR’s winningest car owner and Elliott is NASCAR’s most popular driver.

Josh Berry will drive the No. 9 Chevrolet on Sunday in place of Elliott.

Elliott would need a waiver from NASCAR to be eligible for this year’s playoffs because he’s missing a race. NASCAR has granted waivers to drivers for a variety of medical and non-medical reasons.

SAKHIR, Bahrain (AP)Formula One’s governing body inspected Lewis Hamilton’s jewelry before the seven-time champion was cleared to practice ahead of the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Hamilton has clashed with governing body FIA over a jewelry ban enacted last year and indicated he had piercings that cannot be removed. He received an exception for his nose stud. Hamilton said he had to keep the stud in because of complications linked to a blood blister on his nose, which occurred because he kept having to take it out for races. In a later interview with Vanity Fair, Hamilton admitted that he exaggerated his piercings to push back at what he believed was being personally targeted by the ban.

The FIA did not reference his nose stud in a Friday statement but said Hamilton received a medical exemption related to “concerns about disfigurement.”

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Georgia coach Kirby Smart says proposed changes to clock operating rules shouldn’t significantly impact college football games next season, but he called them a good first step to reducing the number of plays in the name of player health and safety.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee on Friday approved a proposal to keep the clock running when a team makes a first down except in the last two minutes of a half. Since 1968, the clock has stopped on a first down until the referee gives the ready-for-play signal.

The committee forwarded two other proposals to keep games moving. One would have penalties that are accepted at the end of the first and third quarters enforced at the start of the following quarter rather than having an untimed down. The other would take away the option for a coach to call back-to-back timeouts during the same dead ball period.

BASEBALL

Max Scherzer has theorized that baseball’s new pitch clock will allow pitchers to dictate the pace of games. In the eyes of one umpire, he raced too fast even for the pitch timer.

Scherzer tested the boundaries of baseball’s novel pace-of-play rules during his second spring training start, trying several unusual tactics to get Washington Nationals hitters off their game Friday. At one point, he started throwing a pitch to Victor Robles the moment plate umpire Jeremy Riggs reset the clock, and Riggs called him for a balk.

Major League Baseball’s pitch clock has left pitchers and hitters learning a whole new pace to the game this spring. Players have 30 seconds to resume play between batters. Between pitches, pitchers have 15 seconds to deliver the ball with nobody on and 20 seconds if there’s a baserunner.

Batters must be in the box and alert to the pitcher with at least eight seconds on the clock, and they only get one timeout per plate appearance.

PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) – Manny Machado, Nelson Cruz and the San Diego Padres expect to be big bashers in the batter’s box this season. On Friday night, they were a big bunch of nothing.

Chicago Cubs starter Justin Steele and six relievers combined on baseball’s first spring training no-hitter since 2017, blanking the Padres 4-0.

The Cubs said they believed it was the first spring training no-hitter in their history.

TENNIS

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Daniil Medvedev ended Novak Djokovic’s 20-match winning streak by beating the world’s top-ranked player 6-4, 6-4 to reach the final at the Dubai Championships.

The third-seeded Medvedev will face defending champion Andrey Rublev in an all-Russian final that could have political overtones after Rublev reiterated his call for peace.

Medvedev picked up trophies in Rotterdam and Doha before coming to Dubai and beating Djokovic to extend his winning streak to 13 matches, the second longest of his career. The former No. 1 player broke Djokovic twice in the first set and again to open the second, eventually closing it out on his first match point.

Medvedev hadn’t beaten Djokovic since the 2021 U.S. Open final for his first – and only – major title.

SOCCER

PARIS (AP) – Paris Saint-Germain defender Achraf Hakimi was given preliminary charges of rape, French prosecutors said.

The prosecutors office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre said Hakimi was questioned on Thursday by investigators probing rape allegations. He was then indicted by an investigating judge and placed under judicial supervision.

Under French law, preliminary charges mean there is reason to suspect a crime has been committed but it allows magistrates more time to investigate before deciding whether to send the case to trial.

Hakimi’s lawyer, Fanny Colin, said the player “strongly denied accusations made against him,” in a written message to The Associated Press.