■ Baseball
No plan to fete Bonds: MLB
Major League Baseball has no plans to celebrate the moment San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, according to commissioner Bud Selig. Bonds remains two home runs short of the 755 career home-run record set by Aaron against in Milwaukee three decades ago. Asked if the league has plans to commemorate the occasion of Bond breaking the record, Selig said there were none. "That's up to San Francisco," he told reporters.
■ Soccer
Charlton loses two stars
Relegated Charlton lost two of their international stars on Friday as Danish striker Dennis Rommedahl was sold to Ajax Amsterdam and defender Luke Young was set to move to Middlesbrough. The 28-year-old Rommedahl, who had played in the English Premiership since 2004 after spending seven seasons with PSV Eindhoven, was sold to Ajax for ?680,000 (US$1.4 million). Boro have negotiated a price of ?2.5 million for 28-year-old Young. Young, who can play at center-half or left-back, joined the Addicks for ?4 million in 2000, but has been given permission by manager Alan Pardew to pursue his hopes of a return to the top flight following Charlton's relegation.
■ Soccer
Anelka could leave: Lee
Bolton coach Sammy Lee admitted on Friday that French striker Nicolas Anelka will be allowed to leave if the club receives an offer from a major team. "I have to be fair to him; he is 29 and told me he wants Champions League football. So do I, with Bolton," said Lee. "But if one of the top four in England or a Champions League club in Europe showed an interest, it would be wrong of me to stand in his way. I'm not in the business of getting rid of our best players but I have to be fair to everybody. If the deal was fair to all parties, I would not stop him."
■ Rugby
World Cup tickets sell well
Two million tickets have been sold for the Rugby World Cup, which will be hosted by France and starts in September, the organizing committee said. A total of 2.4 million tickets have been put on sale for the World Cup, and the sale of the 2 millionth ticket 50 days before the start of the event puts organizers ahead of target, a statement said on Friday. The Rugby World Cup takes place in 10 venues in France and two in Britain. The World Cup starts Sept. 7 and ends Oct. 20. "These ticket sales numbers will mean full stadiums that are alive with excited supporters and busy, colorful streets in all of the host cities," said Bernard Lapasset, president of the French Rugby Union and the Rugby World Cup Organizing Committee.
■ Cricket
Muralitharan support urged
All-rounder Andrew Symonds has urged Australian crowds to applaud Muttiah Muralitharan if the controversial off-spinner breaks Shane Warne's test wickets record when Sri Lanka tour Australia in November. The 35-year-old Sri Lankan became the second player in history to reach 700 victims in the final test against Bangladesh in Kandy earlier this month and lies eight scalps behind leg-spinner Warne's record haul. Symonds, a former teammate of Muralitharan at English County Lancashire, said he hoped Australian crowds would respect his achievements despite him twice being called for throwing on tours there in the 1990s.
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