Elena Delle Donne was driving in her car in September when a familiar, unwelcome sensation gave her pause. Pain shot down her leg, radiating and taking her back to eight months earlier, when she’d undergone surgery because a disc in her back was pushing on a nerve.

Up until then, Delle Donne had been feeling better. She had the operation in January 2020 and took the year to rehabilitate and strengthen. After finishing the 2019 WNBA Finals with three herniated discs — playing through the pain to win her first championship with the Washington Mystics — the two-time MVP was getting closer to making a full return.

She tried to continue with her physical therapy after the car incident, but the herniation was back and bigger this time.

“I knew the pain from before,” Delle Donne said over Zoom from her home workshop. “I was just hoping, along with the rest of my team, that through therapy I could get rid of it. But unfortunately it wouldn’t go away, and there are some things you can’t fix through rest, therapy and strengthening. I needed to go back for surgery.”

Delle Donne, 31, scheduled surgery to repair the herniated disc in early December. At that point, as she prepared for her second back operation in a year, she and her wife Amanda had an idea for a new project.

Since the 2019 Finals, Delle Donne had mostly been out of the public eye. She didn’t travel to Bradenton, Fla. last year to play in the WNBA bubble because of her chronic Lyme disease. She stayed within her pod through the COVID-19 pandemic, meeting with her physical therapist virtually and passing the time with board games, woodworking and at-home dance parties. It was Amanda who first suggested they document their lives from that point on, taking people behind the scenes of Delle Donne’s recovery and giving themselves a way to chronicle this bizarre but memorable year.

“Beyond the Game” will premiere Monday, April 19th, with new episodes dropping every Monday thereafter. 

“This series certainly goes through right after surgery, when I’m a little loopy, through all the different progressions and ways that I’ve tried to get back, like swimming,” Delle Donne said.

“There’s just a lot of silliness through it all, but I think people will really enjoy it.”

Delle Donne isn’t sure whether she’ll be ready for the first day of training camp on April 25 — she has her good days and bad days with the back. But she’s spending hours in the gym every day getting stronger, with the goal of playing in the Mystics’ regular season opener against the Chicago Sky on May 15.

It’s also not only her back she has to worry about. Delle Donne has been living and playing basketball with chronic Lyme for over 10 years now. She brought awareness to the condition last summer when she opted out of the bubble season and called out the WNBA for denying her a medical exemption and forcing her to decide between playing and forfeiting her paycheck (the Mystics ultimately paid out her full salary for the season).

Delle Donne revealed then that she takes 64 pills a day to manage the disease, and the side effects still linger.

“With the recovery of my back, there are days where I can tell that the Lyme stuff is what’s making it difficult to recover because it adds so much inflammation to my body,” she said. “It makes it confusing when you’re trying to figure out like, ‘OK, why is my back so inflamed now? Was it the workout yesterday? Is it something with Lyme?’ It’s just kind of a constant thing.”

The year and a half away from basketball has given Delle Donne an appreciation for her health and her loved ones. She’s found comfort in being home and taking time to pause, reflect and enjoy what she has.

The separation has also made her crave competition again. The Mystics return just five players from their 2019 championship team and yet boast arguably more talent now than they did then. Tina Charles will suit up for Washington for the first time after signing in free agency last year and sitting out of the bubble season with a medical exemption. Starting guard Natasha Cloud also returns, and Myisha Hines-Allen will look to build on her breakout 2020 campaign. Alysha Clark signed with the Mystics in February, but will miss the season with a foot injury.

And Delle Donne, after all, is just 19 months removed from her historic MVP season, when she became the first WNBA player to join the 50-40-90 club. After a year and a half spent staying in touch with teammates over Zoom and text messages, she’s counting down to the reunion with her team and basketball.

“I’m just trying to keep life simple now and keep my eyes on what is in front of me,” Delle Donne said. “And at this moment, it’s continuing to strengthen, get better and get myself back on the court for my teammates.”

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.