America's cup: Light winds cause delays
San Francisco's Oracle syndicate has been the worst affected of nine challenger teams by the continued disruption of challenger racing at the America's Cup off Auckland. Four Louis Vuitton Cup match races were abandoned yesterday because of light winds, increasing to nine the number of races postponed in three days. Yesterday's races were to be resailed today, pushing the program back another day. Oracle, backed by software mogul Larry Ellison, has managed to sail only three of six scheduled races and could be forced to sail two races each day on shortened courses to compensate.
Chess: Kramnik beats computer
World champion Vladimir Kramnik outwitted the world's most powerful chess computer Deep Fritz on Tuesday, to win the third game in a match dubbed the "Brains in Bahrain" contest. The 27-year-old Russian, playing with black pieces, beat German-developed Fritz in 51 moves to lead the eight-game series 2.5-05. The first game was drawn. Fritz is capable of evaluating 3.5 million moves per second and the man-versus-machine contest is a sequel to Gary Kasparov's 1997 battle with super-computer Deep Blue in New York.
Snooker: Hendry defends Higgins
Seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry has welcomed the news that 53-year-old Alex "Hurricane" Higgins is to return to snooker but says the volatile Ulsterman is unlikely to win a match. Some of the younger players have criticized Higgins' planned comeback but Hendry sprang to the former world champion's defense yesterday. "What some players have to learn is that, without Higgins, this game wouldn't be where it is now," Scot Hendry told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "Although he clearly wouldn't live with the players of today, this guy is pretty much down and out and you cannot kick him when he is down. At least give him the chance of achieving some glory."
Tennis: Clijsters wins in Germany
Cheered by boyfriend Lleyton Hewitt, Kim Clijsters claimed her first victory over Russia's Anastasia Myskina in three career meetings on Tuesday to reach the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix with a 6-4 6-2 victory. There were also wins for four-times former champion Martina Hingis, who overcame Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 6-4 6-2, fifth-seeded Amelie Mauresmo, who beat German wildcard Barbara Rittner 6-4 6-0 and qualifier Alexandra Stevenson who overcame fellow American Meghann Shaughnessy 6-3 5-7 6-3 to set up a clash with top seed Jennifer Capriati.
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