■ Tennis
Hewitt blasts past Gaudio
Former two-time winner Lleyton Hewitt pounded French Open champion Gaston Gaudio 6-2, 6-1 in Houston, Texas on Friday to reach the semifinals of the ATP Masters Cup. Hewitt finished runner-up with a 2-1 record in the Red Group to top-ranked Roger Federer, who won all three of his round-robin matches. Eliminated were Carlos Moya, third at 1-2, and Gaudio, 0-3 without winning a set. Andy Roddick qualified from the Blue Group, and he was to be joined by either Marat Safin or Tim Henman, who met later Friday.
■ Crickt
Contract dispute remains
West Indies cricket administrators and player representatives finished almost 18 hours of talks over a contract dispute in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on Friday without a resolution or public comment. However, there were indications the two sides will meet again shortly. The dispute arose when the West Indies Players Association accused the West Indies Cricket Board of bypassing it and going straight to the players with invitations to a three-week training in Barbados this month, in preparation for a one-day series in Australia in January. The camp will also introduce new coach Bennett King and assistant David Moore, both of Australia.
■ Baseball
Guillen goes to Expos
The Anaheim Angels traded troubled Dominican outfielder Jose Guillen to the Washington-bound Expos for Venezuelan outfielder Juan Rivera and a prospect, AP learned on Friday. Anaheim and Montreal scheduled conference calls but did not announce the subject. Details of the deal were described to the AP by a person close to Guillen, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It was the best thing that could happen, taking into consideration the way things ended last season between us," Guillen told the AP from his home in Miami. "I'm excited to be a part of the Expos and part of history, now that we'll play in the US capital." Guillen was suspended for the last eight games of the regular season and dropped from Anaheim's playoff roster after he threw a tantrum in the dugout and clubhouse when he was removed for a pinch-runner on Sept. 25.
■ Doping
Conte blames the Feds
The founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative alleged the US government fabricated statements that suggested he provided steroids to top athletes, including baseball star Barry Bonds, according to federal court documents filed in San Francisco on Friday. "I very clearly told all four of the law enforcement officers present that I would not cooperate with them in any way, regarding any of the physicians, coaches or athletes involved with BALCO Laboratories," Victor Conte said in the documents. IRS agent Jeff Novitzky told US District Judge Susan Illston in court papers last month that "Conte openly acknowledged giving testosterone-base cream, itself a steroid, to numerous professional athletes and specifically identified the names of the specific athletes to whom he had given drugs.
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