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Sports Briefs

■ Snooker
Murphy through to last eight
Shaun Murphy booked his ticket into the last eight with an impressive 13-8 win over John Parrott at the snooker world championships in Sheffield, England, on Friday. The pair were all square at 8-8 going into the last session when Murphy fired in a 131 clearance and then another 60 to go 10-8 up and the 2005 winner went on to take the next three frames to clinch the win. Murphy said he had to hit top gear against Parrott after going into the final session level. "I just decided to go for it and obviously it paid off," Murphy said.

■ Yachting
Shosholoza comes good
South Africa's Team Shosholoza and France's Areva Challenge were the main winners and losers at the Louis Vuitton Cup on Friday. The pair met in round 11 of the first stage of the round robin matches with Areva holding a 100m cushion at the finish only for the hapless French to get disqualified on a technicality. "All their boat hadn't crossed the [virtual finish] line, the top of their mast didn't pass on the right side of the line," a spokesman for the race committee explained. Areva, who earlier had seen off United Internet Team Germany, remained eighth in the standings after their defeat, one place behind Team Shosholoza. But the French later announced they were appealing the decision.

■ Turtle racing
Billie wins Great Turtle Race
A leatherback turtle called Billie won the first Great Turtle Race from Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands, swimming at a leisurely 5-6 kph, organizers said on Friday. Satellite tracking of 11 tagged turtles showed Billie sprinting away from the main group to make it first to the finish zone. Some 600,000 people logged on to the Web site of the two-week Pacific Ocean marathon (www.greatturtlerace.com), aimed at drawing attention to the endangered species whose numbers have plummeted 95 percent over the past 20 years. Sponsors paid US$25,000 to back a turtle.

■ Aussie Rules
Agency probes drugs tip-off
Australia's sports anti-drug agency said yesterday it was investigating a possible tip-off which gave an Australian Rules football team advance notice of random drug testing. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) said brothers Chad Cornes and Kane Cornes, both members of the Port Adelaide Power team, were told by their father Graham that ASADA officials were en route to the team's training ground to test some of the players. The call came after a radio station Graham Cornes works for, Adelaide's 5AA, was tipped off by an off-air caller. ASADA is looking into the matter to see if it can determine who called Russell Ebert, a radio colleague of Graham Cornes and an employee at the AFL team, and how the drug tests were compromised.

■ Golf
Women defy odds
Two amateur women golfers hit consecutive holes-in-one at a course in England, defying odds of a million to one, their club said on Friday. June Wiener, 75, and Sue Baskind, 61, both aced the 152-yard par-three 24th of the 27-hole course at the Moor Allerton Golf Club in Leeds, northern England during a four ball last weekend. "We were told the odds were a million to one -- I wish I'd had a pound on it," said Wiener, whose two artificial hips appear not to have hampered her golf swing. "We were so glad that there were two others with us as otherwise people wouldn't have believed us," she said.

■ Basketball
Jackson fined for outburst
Golden State's Stephen Jackson was fined US$50,000 by the NBA on Friday for his conduct after being ejected late in the Warriors' loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series on Wednesday night. Jackson left the court in a contentious, roundabout manner after getting his second technical foul. Teammate Baron Davis also was ejected from the game, apparently for sarcastically applauding the officials late in the third quarter. On Thursday, Golden State coach Don Nelson said he would fine both players. Nelson didn't announce the amount of his fines but said: "It will be substantial."

■ Boxing
Gatti to fight Gomez in July
Arturo Gatti will return to the ring on July 14 to fight Alfonso Gomez of the US reality television series The Contender. IBF welterweight champion Kermit Cintron will fight mandatory challenger Walter Matthysse in the co-feature in Atlantic City, fight promoter Main Events announced on Friday. Gatti (40-8, 31 KOs) is a two-time world champion. Gomez (16-3, with two draws and seven KOs) has won four of his last five bouts. He won in the first season of The Contender by defeating Peter Manfredo. Cintron (27-1, 25 KOs) captured the vacant IBF welterweight championship in his bout on Oct. 28 when he defeated Mark Suarez.

■ Basketball
WNBA player arrested
WNBA player Deanna Jackson has been arrested and detained in Israel for assaulting an opponent in the car park following the national league title match, police said Friday. Jackson, who usually plays for the Chicago Sky in the US league, was playing for Israel's Anda Ramat Hasharon team when she was arrested on Wednesday night for attacking Elitzur Ramle guard Ina Gourevitch after the 81-68 defeat. The two players had gotten into a skirmish and shouted insults at each other toward the end of the game. Police said the clash spilled into the parking lot, where Jackson sought out Gourevitch and punched her, breaking her nose.

■ Boxing
Morrison bout called off
Former heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Morrison was pulled from a scheduled bout on Friday night because state government officials didn't get the results of lab tests in time. Dick Cole, boxing administrator for the state's Department of Licensing and Regulation, said a Houston doctor, Jorge Guerrero, examined Morrison on Thursday and cleared him to fight. But Guerrero never filed the paperwork required by the agency, Cole said. Morrison told Houston television station KRIV he was stunned when he learned the fight was canceled. "I've done everything I was asked," Morrison said.

■ Basketball
Jordan's son selects Illinois
Jeffrey Jordan, the son of Michael Jordan, plans to attend the University of Illinois next year and play basketball. Jordan, a 188cm guard at Loyola Academy prep school in Wilmette, Illinois, said in a news release on Friday he chose Illinois over Valparaiso and will play as a walk-on. As a walk-on, Jordan will not receive a scholarship. "After I worked out at Illinois, [met] with the coaching staff and the players and toured the campus with my mom, I just felt more comfortable with U of I," he said.


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