Staring at elimination, the solution couldn't be any clearer for Luna Rossa.
It has to sail better.
The Italians are one defeat away from a 5-0 sweep by Emirates Team New Zealand -- like at the 2000 America's Cup -- after losing Tuesday's fourth-flight race.
PHOTO: AFP
Having rolled past BMW Oracle Racing in the semi-finals, Luna Rossa hasn't made enough correct decisions.
The Kiwis have now edged to within one victory of an America's Cup rematch with Alinghi, while the Italians are a step closer to becoming the first team to be swept in the challengers' series final.
"We've got to go out there with a do-or-die strategy," Luna Rossa sail trimmer Jonathan McKee said. "We've got to go out with a boat set up for the wind, and go out and sail smart and fast."
For the second straight day, the Italians started well -- even leading at one stage -- on the first leg before some questionable calls saw it lose a three boat-length lead halfway up the course.
"This is a very unpredictable place," Luna Rossa tactician Torben Grael said. "Sometimes you get it wrong, and sometimes you get it right."
The Italians' gamble on splitting to the right to start paid off as they rolled over onto starboard tack toward the Kiwis fully aware that they had to take the first lap to control the race.
But a left-hand shift saw the Kiwis take back the advantage, pushing the Italians out beyond the right layline before rounding the first marker in the lead.
"With hindsight they might have done it differently, but I understand why they did it," Emirates Team New Zealand strategist Ray Davies said about the Italians' decision to let the Kiwis stay on the left.
"We were confident with the wind that there was more left [shift] to come then what we started with," he said.
After being crossed by Luna Rossa, Emirates Team New Zealand had a tack to port that pushed it higher up the course and into a lead that turned into a 52-second win.
The Italians have trailed around every marker in the best-of-nine series. Only one team -- BMW Oracle Racing -- has won after trailing around the first gate in 17 challengers series matches since the start of the semi-finals.
The winner sails against Alinghi in the best-of-nine America's Cup final from June 23.
Emirates Team New Zealand is looking likely to set up a rematch of the final in Auckland, New Zealand, four years ago that ended in a 5-0 sweep.
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