■ Tennis
Ivanisevic out of Masters
Goran Ivanisevic's glory days looked far behind him yesterday when the former Wimbledon champion was beaten in the Monte Carlo Masters by a French qualifier. The Croatian ran out of steam on Center Court as Nicolas Devilder recorded the best win of his career 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the first round. Ivanisevic was playing his sixth tournament of the year and he has won just two matches in 2004. Champion at Wimbledon in 2001 -- the last of his 22 titles dating back to 1990 -- Ivanisevic plans to return to the grasscourt grand slam in June for the first time since winning the event. Injuries have prevented the 32-year-old from returning to London the last two years and he is hoping for "something special" to bow out with. He has two months to find that something special because yesterday, against a player ranked 235 in the world, Ivanisevic looked out of ideas.
■ Soccer
South Korea's coach leaves
South Korea coach Humberto Coelho said yesterday he had reached an agreement with the Korea Football Association (KFA) to step down from his position. Under pressure since a recent humiliating scoreless draw against the Maldives in a World Cup qualifier, a tired-looking Coelho said that he would leave South Korea today. "I am very sorry that I could not finish my term", the former Portugal coach told a news conference. "I hope the KFA will support the next coach of the Korean national soccer team," he said. Coelho, who stressed that he had not resigned, said his departure several months before the end of his contract had been mutually agreed. He declined to elaborate on the exact reasons for going, citing a confidentiality agreement, but hinted that there had not been given enough time to build the team. "To achieve our purpose we need patience, we practised for 72 hours in four months and it was not enough, but I believe the Korean National Soccer team can win the Asian cup," Coelho said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier