Sheffield United have appointed Slavisa Jokanovic as their new manager following their relegation from the Premier League.

The former Watford and Fulham boss has signed a three-year contract with the Blades, succeeding Chris Wilder, who left the club in March after nearly five years in charge.

Blades’ Under-23 coach Paul Heckingbottom oversaw the club’s final 10 matches of the season but was unable to prevent United from making the drop.

Jokanovic won promotion from the second-tier Championship at both Watford and Fulham and the Blades hierarchy will be hoping he can repeat the feat at Bramall Lane.

“I’m excited to work in English football again and I’m looking forward to getting started with the players and staff, as well as meeting our passionate, loyal supporters as we prepare for the challenge in the Championship,” said the Serbian.

“I want to assure our amazing fans that we’re fully committed to helping the team achieve its goals and make you feel proud.”

The club’s Saudi owner, Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz al Saud, said: “Once we held discussions with Slavisa, it was also abundantly clear that his ambitions were aligned with those of the club. It goes without saying, we are thrilled to have someone in charge with a CV which boasts a proven track record of success in England and abroad.”

World number one Novak Djokovic said on Thursday that he would reconsider taking part in the Tokyo Olympics if spectators were not banned from attending.

The world number one’s reaction came after calls grew in Japan for the Games to take place behind closed doors, with one doctors’ association saying the event should be cancelled altogether.

“I plan on playing in the Olympics, as long as fans are allowed,” Djokovic said in a press conference.

“If not, I’d think twice about participating.”

Djokovic is not the first tennis star to express doubts over the rescheduled Olympics — Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams recently said they were unsure whether they would compete.

Roger Federer said athletes needed a firm decision on whether the event is going ahead, adding he was still in two minds.

Japanese stars Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori have both raised concerns about whether Tokyo should be hosting the Games at all.

Medical groups have warned the massive event could introduce new variants to Japan even as parts of Japan, including capital Tokyo, are still under states of emergency.

Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, said on Thursday that holding the Games without spectators “is the bare minimum given the current situation”.

“This is the Olympics in a time of emergency,” he said at a press conference.

Organisers have already barred overseas fans, while a decision on domestic spectators is expected in late June.

Tokyo’s current virus restrictions allow venues to have up to 5,000 fans or 50 percent capacity, whichever is fewer.

Djokovic was speaking after he booked his place in the semi-finals in the Belgrade tournament with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Federico Coria, a victory that puts him fifth on the list of Open era wins.

The 56-minute demolition of the 96th ranked Argentine took Djokovic to 952 wins, putting him one ahead of Guillermo Vilas.

“It was a great performance,” said Djokovic, who is tuning up for the French Open which begins in Paris on Sunday.

“And probably one of the best matches, if not the best match, I played this year. I felt fantastic on the court from the first point.”

Djokovic will face either fellow Serb Dusan Lajovic or qualifier Andrej Martin in the semi-finals.

He improved to 18-3 for the season and is attempting to reach his third final of the year.

Djokovic won the Australian Open for a ninth time but lost the Italian Open final on clay to Nadal.

Vilas, also an Argentine, played professionally between 1969 and 1992, reaching eight major finals, winning four.

He was a four-time French Open finalist, winning in 1977 with a straight sets demolition of the American Brian Gottfried.

Cuban baseball talent Cesar Prieto abandoned his team several hours after arriving in the United States for an Olympic qualifier, sports officials in Havana said, in the latest defection to hit the communist island.

Prieto, who turned 22 this month, vanished just hours after arriving in Florida, where Cuba is to play for a spot in the Tokyo Olympic games.

Baseball is Cuba’s national sport and the team is now weakened by the loss of one of its top players, an infielder and powerful hitter.

The 41-member Cuban delegation had gone through a long and complicated process to obtain visas for the United States, which maintains sanctions against Havana.

Cuba’s baseball federation said in a statement that Prieto’s disappearance had generated “repudiation” among his teammates, and that it had been the victim of “traffickers”.

Prieto, who is likely to be courted by Major League teams, is by no means the first Cuban athlete to take flight during a sporting event.

Baseball players Aroldis Chapman, Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, Livan Hernandez and Jose Contreras are among the players who left Cuba. All went on to the Major Leagues and were named to All-Star teams.

In 2008, seven footballers deserted Cuba’s under-23 team at a qualifying tournament in Florida in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Striker Maykel Galindo defected a year earlier.

Major League Baseball and the Cuban baseball federation had reached a deal in late 2018 that would have allowed Cubans to play in the United States without having to first defect, but former president Donald Trump quickly scrapped it.

Since then, there have been several cases of Cuban players abandoning their teams in order to play in the United States.

In its statement, the Baseball Federation of Cuba said it was the “victim of the actions of merchants and traffickers favored by the decision of the government of the United States to disable the agreement aimed at normalizing the insertion of our players in the circuits of the MLB.”

Alberto Bettiol of EF Education won the 18th stage of the Giro d’Italia, the longest of the race at 231 kilometres, on Thursday in Stradella.

Bettiol hunted down Frenchman Remi Cavagna of Deceuninck who had escaped from a big breakaway group with 26 kilometres to go and finished 15 seconds ahead of fellow Italian Simone Consonni.

The main peloton, including the overall leader, Colombian Egan Bernal of Ineos, finished 23 minutes and 30 seconds after Bettiol.

The breakaway of 23 riders took shape in the first hour of the race on a large flat stage from Rovareta to Stradella which gave the main contenders a chance to recover before the Giro heads back into the mountains.

Cavagna, a time trial specialist, burst clear with 26 kilometres to go.

But Bettiol chased the Frenchman down through the vineyards of Oltrepo, and Cavagna cracked on final short climb.

Bettiol rode the last seven kilometres alone for the third victory of his career and his first in Italy. It was also his team’s first in this year’s Giro.

The Tuscan also gave the host nation its fifth victory since the start in Turin.

On Friday, the 166km 19th stage from Abbiategrasso finishes with a tough climb up Alpe Merra but has been rerouted to avoid the climb of the Mount Mottarone, out of respect for the victims of the cable car accident there last Sunday.