■ Basketball
Brezec out for two weeks
Charlotte center Primoz Brezec is expected to miss the first two weeks of the NBA season as he recovers from exhaustion and dehydration, the Bobcats said on Wednesday. Brezec, 27, spent most of his offseason helping the Slovenian national team prepare for the world championships. Due to the lack of rest, he missed a portion of training camp and sat out of three of the Bobcats' eight preseason games. Brezec appeared in 79 games with Charlotte last season, averaging 12.4 points and 5.6 rebounds. The Bobcats can slide Emeka Okafor from power forward to center or start Melvin Ely or Jake Voskuhl in the middle.
■ Baseball
Mota gets 50-game ban
Free agent reliever Guillermo Mota, who ended the season with the New York Mets, was suspended for 50 games on Wednesday for violating MLB drug policy. In keeping with the league's policy, the nature of Mota's violation was not revealed when his punishment was announced by the MLB commissioner's office. "I have no one to blame but myself," Mota said in a statement. "I take full responsibility for my actions and accept MLB's suspension." Mota, who came to New York in August in a trade with Cleveland, was an effective set-up man for the Mets, posting a 3-0 record with a 1.00 ERA in 18 innings pitched over 18 games.
■ Beach Soccer
Brazil want crown back
Brazil is eager to reclaim the title of champion when the second FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup gets under way today. Brazil was a nine-time champion under Beach Soccer Worldwide's reign, but France won the inaugural title when FIFA took over last year. Brazil was upset by Portugal in the semifinals and failed to win the crown for only the second time since it was first contested in 1995. France and Brazil remain the teams to beat this year on Copacabana Beach, even though they won't come with some of their top players. This year's tournament will have 16 teams.
■ Baseball
Simmons dies aged 111
Silas Simmons, a pitcher-outfielder who played in the US Negro leagues and was said to be the oldest living professional baseball player, died two weeks after his 111th birthday. He died on Sunday in a nursing home, Zion Hill Mortuary said on Wednesday. Simmons, a left-hander, played for several teams from 1912-29, including the New York Lincoln Giants of the Eastern Colored League, the Cuban Stars and the Blue Ribbons of Germantown, who later became the Homestead Grays. Simmons was born in Middleton, Delaware, in 1895, the same year as Babe Ruth, and honored by the Center for Negro League Baseball Research on his birthday on Oct. 14. A Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan, Simmons was presented with a No. 111 jersey. Researchers this year identified him as the oldest living man to have played professionally.
■ Spain
Huge bid for TV rights
Madrid's regional government and a local bank have bid 600 million euros (US$765.7 million) to broadcast Real Madrid's games, the ABC newspaper reported on Wednesday. The team has been offered 120 million euros for each of the five seasons from 2009 to 2013 by free-to-air network Telemadrid -- which is controlled by the regional government -- and bank Caja Madrid. Sogecable, which forms part of media giant Prisa, currently pays 55 million euros a season for Real Madrid's matches, which are shown via digital platform Digital Plus. This deal runs until 2008, although Sogecable has the option to extend it for a further year by paying 60 million euros.
■ Brazil
Veteran star out of hospital
Brazilian World Cup veteran Nilton Santos was released from hospital on Wednesday, 20 days after being admitted with heart disease. The 81-year-old former defender left a Rio de Janeiro hospital after a heart catheterization conducted on Monday showed he would not need surgery, doctors said. Doctors said Nilton Santos suffered from a dilated cardiomyopathy, or an enlargement and weakening of the heart, but it could be treated with medication. Doctors had said earlier he also suffered from an ischemia, or lack of blood flow to the heart. Nilton Santos had been hospitalized since Oct. 11 after feeling ill at his home near Rio de Janeiro. Nilton Santos, a defender for Rio de Janeiro's Botafogo, helped Brazil win the 1958 and 1962 World Cups. He played 85 matches for Brazil, scoring four goals. With Nilton Santos and others including striker Garrincha and midfielder Didi, Botafogo was the only club to rival Pele's Santos in the early 1960s.
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