Weekend Preview: What’s On In Sport This Weekend

In this segment, we take a look at the upcoming weekend’s biggest sporting contests.

This Australia Day weekend happens to hold lots of Australian sporting action in cricket, tennis and football.

Women’s Big Bash Final

The Women’s Big Bash League season draws to an end on Australia Day, with the Sydney Sixers and the Brisbane Heat set to face off for the title.

The Sixers are aiming to win a third straight competition after topping the league.

Out of 14 regular season matches, the Sixers won 10.

Meanwhile, the Heat, who finished third and then overcame the second-placed Sydney Thunder, had a regular season record of nine wins and five losses.

If Brisbane were to cause an upset, they’d be the first team based outside of Sydney to win the women’s competition.

Australian Open

The Australian Open is drawing to a close but tennis fans can look forward to this weekend’s action, with the women’s singles final held tomorrow, and the men’s to be held on Sunday.

In the women’s final, Japan’s Naomi Osaka will play Czech’s Petra Kvitova

Osaka took out another Czech in her semi-final, beating Karolina Pliskova, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

Kvitova beat USA’s Danielle Collins in straight sets in her semi-final.

Tonight sees Novak Djokavic play Lucas Pouille.

The winner of the clash will play Rafael Nadal in the final.

Nadal easily dispatched of fan favourite Stefanos Tsitsipas in their semi-final, crushing the Greek 6-2, 6-4, 6-0.

In the men’s doubles final, Finish Henri Kontinen and Australian John Peers, take on French duo Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.

Aussie star Samantha Stosur and China’s Zhang Shuai play France’s Kristina Mladenovic and Hungary’s Timea Babos in the women’s doubles final.

In the mixed final, Australian’s John-Patrick Smith and Astra Sharma play American Rajeev Ram and Czech’s Barbora Krejcikova.

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Australia vs Sri Lanka

The day-night test between Australia and Sri Lanka continues over the weekend, with the Aussies looking the better of the two teams so far.

After losing the test series to India, a new-look Australian side performed on the first day of the test, albeit to a less formidable opponent.

Sri Lanka were all out for 144, with Niroshan Dickwella high-scoring with 64 runs off 78 balls.

Besides Dickwella, only one other Sri Lankan player scored over 20 runs.

Jhye Richardson had a strong test debut for Australia, with bowling figures of 3-26, with five maidens from 14 overs.

Pat Cummins took four wickets, Mitchell Starc two, and Nathan Lyon just the one.

The Aussies ended the first day, at 2-72, with the wickets of Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja falling.

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Sydney FC vs Melbourne Victory

The A-League sees second play third this weekend, when Sydney FC take on Melbourne Victory.

Both teams will be eager to get all three points to stay up to the pace of league-leaders Perth Glory.

The last time the two sides met, Victory got a 2-1 win.

That match was at Sydney’s home ground, with Saturday’s clash being held in Melbourne at AAMI Park.

Despite this, Sydney will take confidence out of winning their last three games.

Both teams played Wellington in their latest matches.

Victory only managed a 3-3 draw at home, while Sydney got a 1-0 win in New Zealand.

Victory still go into the weekend’s clash the slight favourites.

By Brandon Clark