Germany, in a quirky twist of fate, face Argentina in a friendly on September 3 less than two months after seeing off the South Americans to be crowned world champions in Rio de Janeiro's Maracana.

Joachim Loew's world beaters meet Argentina in Dusseldorf in a Euro 2016 qualifier warm-up arranged back in March.

James Rodriguez hopes the scoring streak that earned him the Golden Boot award at the World Cup continues after his move to European champion Real Madrid.

Madrid paid Monaco a reported $108 million for the Colombia forward after he scored a tournament-leading six goals at this summer's World Cup in Brazil.

Serena Williams waited out a brief rain delay before beating Czech left-hander Lucie Safarova 7-5, 6-4 on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup.

Having won her fourth title of the season last week in Stanford, this week's progress continued Williams' recovery since withdrawing from Wimbledon because of equilibrium problems.

U.S. star forward Kevin Durant has pulled out of the 2014 FIBA World Cup, saying he is "mentally drained" from a long NBA regular season and playoff.

At the rate American golf stars are getting hurt, Tom Watson might become a playing captain when his U.S. Ryder Cup squad tries to reclaim the trophy from Europe next month.

World number one Novak Djokovic slumped to a 6-2, 6-2 defeat to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the third round of the Toronto Masters on Thursday while Roger Federer advanced with a tight victory.

Israel will not be allowed to stage the Davis Cup World Group tie against Argentina in Tel Aviv in September because of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, tournament chiefs said Thursday.

The tie, set for September 12-14 at the Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv, will either be switched to a neutral venue or be played in Argentina.

While admitting that he would "never say never", Philipp Lahm on Thursday ruled out any return to the German national team.

"It's like life," Lahm told Sky Sport News. "You should never say never, something could always crop up.

Paris Saint-Germain have pulled out of talks with Real Madrid over the transfer of Angel Di Maria because the Argentine midfielder is too expensive, club president Nasser al-Khelaifi said Thursday.

"We spoke with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, but Di Maria was too expensive and we stopped talks," Khelaifi said during the unveiling of Brazil defender David Luiz.

Real Madrid says France striker Karim Benzema has agreed to extend his contract with the European champions to the end of the 2018-19 season.

The 26-year-old Benzema's previous contract expired in June 2015.