■ Soccer
Palestine defeats Taiwan
Mahmoud Amir scored in the fourth minute of injury time Thursday to give Palestine a 1-0 victory over Taiwan in a World Cup Asia Zone Group 2 qualifying match. The match was of little consequence since Uzbekistan clinched the group title on Wednesday with a 2-1 victory over Iraq. The victory assured Uzbekistan of advancing to the third and final round of Asian qualifying. Only the eight group winners advance. Each team has one more game remaining. Iraq will face Palestine while Uzbekistan will host Taiwan in November.
■ Baseball
BayStars shut out the Carp
Left-hander Yuji Yoshimi came within one out of a no-hitter Thursday as the Yokohama BayStars blanked the Hiroshima Carp 4-0 in the Central League. Yoshimi allowed a double to Kazuki Fukuchi with two outs in the bottom of the ninth for the only hit en route to his first complete game of the season. Yoshimi struck out three and walked one in a 107-pitch outing. Takuro Ishii led a three-run second with a bases-loaded two-run single off Yasuhiro Oyamada (4-3).
■ Basketball
NBA ponders rule changes
The National Basketball Association has no plans to change its rules for the 3-point shot, though it will proceed with an experiment for its developmental league in which all field goals will be worth 2 points until the final five minutes of regulation and overtime. "This is a not a rule for consideration in the NBA and has never been discussed by the competition committee," NBA vice president Stu Jackson said Thursday, adding he expects the minor league National Basketball Developmental League (NBDL) to approve the experiment for the season that begins Nov. 19.
■ Superbikes
Rossi eyes championship
Valentino Rossi, a win or second-place finish away from clinching the MotoGP series championship, led all qualifiers Friday in the opening session for tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix. Rossi, trying to win at Phillip Island for the third time in a row and fifth time overall, finished Friday's qualifying session on his Yamaha with a single-lap time of 1 minute, 30.222 seconds. Spaniard Sete Gibernau, the only rider who can stop Rossi from taking the title, was second-fastest Friday in 1:30.600. Nicky Haydon of the US was third in 1:31.377, with both Gibernau and Haydon on Hondas. Rossi took the last 500cc title in 2001 and won the past two MotoGP championships with Honda before making a multimillion dollar switch to Yamaha this year.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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