■ Tennis
Paes and Qureshi team up
India's Leander Paes will pair up with Aisam Qureshi of Pakistan in the men's doubles at the Mumbai Open beginning today. India's Davis Cup captain Paes won this month's US Open doubles with Czech Martin Damm but had to take a new partner for his home event as Damm is in the Netherlands for a Davis Cup world group tie. This is the first time Paes and Qureshi will pair up, a move that may go some way to helping improve relations between two South Asian neighbors who have fought wars over the disputed region of Kashmir.
■ Track and Field
Powell blows record chance
Asafa Powell of Jamaica missed out on an a chance to break his own 100m world record yesterday when he was disqualified at the Yokohama Super Track and Field Meet. Powell was disqualified for a second false start in the 100m race at Nissan Stadium. Japan's Shingo Suetsugu won the race with a time of 10.11 seconds. Powell has twice this year equaled his own world record of 9.77, in June at the British Grand Prix and last month in Zurich. He withdrew from the 100m at the Sept. 16 World Cup in Greece so he could come to Japan. Yesterday's meet was expected to feature Powell's final 100 race of the year.
■ Tennis
Brazil takes Davis Cup lead
Flavio Saretta defeated Sweden's Andreas Vinciguerra 6-4, 1-6, 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 to give Brazil a 1-0 lead on Saturday in its Davis Cup World Group playoff, which was further delayed by fading daylight. The match was supposed to have been played on Friday but was postponed due to heavy rain along with the second singles between Ricardo Mello and Robin Soderling. That match was postponed again, this time due to fading daylight. Mello and Soderling were due to face each other yesterday. Saretta battled for four hours before finally subduing Vinciguerra. Weather and daylight permitting, the doubles match between Brazilians Gustavo Kuerten and Andre Sa and Sweden's Simon Aspelin and Jonas Bjorkman was also due to be held yesterday. If the playoff remains undecided by the time the doubles match has been played, the two reverse singles, originally scheduled for yesterday, will be disputed today.
■ Soccer
D.C. United honors `Diablo'
Marco Etcheverry was inducted into D.C. United's ``Tradition of Excellence'' on Saturday night, becoming the second member behind John Harkes. A seven-time Major League Soccer All-Star, the Bolivian midfielder nicknamed El Diablo was one of 16 players from D.C. United's 1996 team that celebrated the 10th anniversary of their first MLS Cup prior to a game against the New York Red Bulls. "Marco was the most influential player in the history of MLS, and without his brilliance on the field and his ability to raise his game in our most important matches, there would be no D.C. United legacy," D.C. United president Kevin Payne said.
■ Soccer
Curt Johnson to step down
Curt Johnson will step down as the Kansas City Wizards' general manager at the end of the season because a contract agreement couldn't be reached with the new owners. Johnson, the general manager since November 1999, said on Saturday that he had wanted a long-term deal. The team announced his impending departure on Friday. Johnson will remain as an adviser during the transition to a new general manager.
■ Horse Racing
Dye returns from injury
New Zealand-born Australian jockey Shane Dye posted mixed results yesterday in his first races since suffering serious injuries in late June. Dye, who won the Australia's richest horse race, the Melbourne Cup, in 1989 on Tawrrific, fell from his mount during a race in Hong Kong in late June. At one point listed in critical condition, the jockey was reported to have lost consciousness and suffered bleeding in his brain. Entered in six of yesterday afternoon's 10 races at Hong Kong's Sha Tin Racecourse, Dye had two third-place finishes and an eighth-place result by late afternoon. He was due to compete in three more races later in the day. Riding Toy Quest, Dye came third in his first race of the day, finished eighth on Star Prodigy in his second race and placed third again in his third race on Win Practitioner. Going into yesterday's races, Dye was ranked last among Hong Kong's jockeys because he hasn't competed since his accident.
■ Golf
Axley leads Texas Open
Eric Axley used a three-birdie finish to complete a 7-under 63 on Saturday at the Texas Open in San Antonio, taking a four-shot lead heading into the final round. Axley, a left-hander with a half backswing pre-shot routine that's similar to the left-handed 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir, is 16 under through 54 holes. Axley is pursuing his first US PGA Tour victory. He's won once on the American developmental Nationwide Tour, but his best finishes in two full seasons on the full men's tour are a pair of ties for 24th place. Another bogey-free round might do it. The 32-year-old Axley has gone 40 holes without a bogey. He started the tournament on Thursday with bogeys on three of his first 14 holes. He leads a group of three players including last year's Byron Nelson Championship winner Ted Purdy, who shot 64 on Saturday. The others at 12 under are Frank Lickliter II (65) and 2004 Ryder Cup participant Chris Riley (64). Dean Wilson is five shots back after a 4-under 66. First round co-leader Justin Rose is tied for sixth.
■ Sumo
Asashoryu defeats Hakuho
Grand champion Asashoryu of Mongolia posted a hard-fought win over compatriot Hakuho yesterday, a day after winning his 18th Emperor's Cup at the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo. In the day's final bout at Ryogoku Kokugikan, Asashoryu got a grip of Hakuho's belt, forced his opponent to the edge and finally toppled the ozeki wrestler to close out the tournament with a 13-2 record. "I lost [on Saturday] so it was important to get a win [yesterday]," Asashoryu said. "I don't want to think about the number of titles and just want to keep on winning and working hard." Hakuho, who was bidding to get promotion to grand champion, finished with an 8-7 record, well short of the 13 wins he needed. Shinzo Abe, set to take over as Japanese prime minister on Tuesday, was in attendance yesterday.
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