■ Basketball
Suns beat Roma in Rome
Shawn Marion scored 19 points and Steve Nash had nine assists as the Phoenix Suns beat Virtus Lottomatica Roma 100-93 in an exhibition game on Friday. The game was part of the NBA Europe Live Tour, during which three other NBA teams will play on the continent. The Suns will play two more games in Cologne, Germany next week against the Philadelphia 76ers and a European team. Phoenix led from the start and struggled only when coach Mike D'Antoni pulled his starters midway through each quarter. Raja Bell and Brazilian guard Leandro Barbarosa each had 18 points for Phoenix. David Hawkins led Roma with 22 points. NBA commissioner David Stern sat courtside next to Euroleague CEO Jordi Bertomeu and Rome mayor Walter Veltroni, an acknowledged basketball fanatic.
■ Basketball
Clippers triumph in Moscow
Shaun Livingston scored 19 points to lead the Los Angeles Clippers over BC Khimki 98-91 in an exhibition match on Friday. The Clippers, one of four NBA teams taking part in a European preseason tour, have been in Moscow since Oct. 1 for a training camp, and were due to play Euro League champion CSKA Moscow yesterday. Center Chris Kaman and Corey Maggette also scored 17 each for Los Angeles, and Cuttino Mobley added 15. Melvin Booker led Khimki with 19 points, hitting 4 of 9 3-point attempts. Boris Gorenc scored 17. The Clippers are the first NBA team to play in Russia since the Atlanta Hawks in 1988.
■ Football
Bengals receiver suspended
Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry was suspended for two games by the National Football League for violating its conduct and substance abuse policies, the league announced on Friday. Henry, who also received a US$20,000 fine, will miss the Bengals next two games against Tampa Bay and Carolina. Cincinnati has a bye this week, so Henry's suspension will begin Oct. 15. The Bengals have been plagued by personnel problems this season, with six players arrested on a variety of charges. Henry, who played college football at West Virginia, has been arrested four times since last December. Linebacker Odell Thurman was also suspended for four games earlier this season for violating the league's substance abuse policy, but that suspension was extended after Thurman was arrested on a drink-driving charge.
■ Soccer
Jordan, Iran play out draw
Jordan and Iran drew 0-0 in a lackluster final game of the three-team LG Cup on Friday. The best chances went to Jordan's Khalid Saad in the 52nd minute, while Iran's Mehdi Rajab Zadea squandered an opportunity in the 72nd before about 4,000 spectators at King Abdullah Stadium. Iran beat Iraq 2-0 on Wednesday in the first match of the two-game cup, dubbed the ``peace'' tournament.
■ Soccer
Masked men beat up ref
Bulgarian referee Hristo Ristoskov is recovering in hospital after being beaten up by three masked men outside his home in the southwest town of Sandanski on Thursday night, police said. "I'm shocked," said Ristoskov. "I have no explanation where this came from." Ristoskov was in charge of the latest derby between Levski Sofia and their bitter city rivals CSKA last month when Levski won 1-0 thanks to a disputed penalty. More than half a dozen referees have been beaten up in Bulgaria in the last few years.
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