■ SOCCER
Frings ruled out until 2008
German international midfielder Torsten Frings will be out for the rest of the year after aggravating the same knee injury which kept him out for three months at the start of the season. The 30-year-old Werder Bremen star faces another lengthy spell on the sidelines after a scan revealed he had damaged the same right knee ligaments he ruptured at the beginning of July. Frings -- capped 66 times and the scorer of nine international goals -- will miss Germany's remaining Euro 2008 qualifier games against Cyprus and Wales later this month.
■ BASEBALL
Torre joins LA Dodgers
Joe Torre was hired on Thursday to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers, taking the job two weeks after walking away from the New York Yankees. The most successful manager in Major League Baseball playoff history, Torre signed a three-year, US$13 million contract. The Dodgers finished fourth in the National League's West Division this season and have only one playoff victory since winning the 1988 World Series under Tom Lasorda. Torre will be introduced at a news conference on Monday at Dodger Stadium. He succeeds Grady Little, who resigned on Tuesday after two seasons and with a year remaining on his contract.
■ SOCCER
World Cup draw announced
The draw for the second round of qualification for Asian teams for the 2010 FIFA World Cup has paired Hong Kong with Turkmenistan while Syria, who are the highest seeded team in the second round, take on Indonesia. ASEAN champions Singapore play AFC Challenge Cup champions Tajikistan and Thailand were drawn against Yemen. The teams will play each other at home and away with the opening fixtures on Friday and the return legs on Nov. 18. The winners will progress to the third round where they will join Iran, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and 11 other sides who received a bye after earning first round victories.
■ FOOTBALL
Scandal-hit coach resigns
A California high school coach resigned on Thursday amid accusations that he was involved in improperly recruiting players from American Samoa. Franklin High School head coach Tom Verner sent in his resignation letter to the Stockton Unified School District after local sports authorities dealt the school's football program the so-called "death penalty," a sanction that will prohibit the school from fielding a football team until 2010. It is believed to be the harshest punishment in the history of high school sports in the US, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Local sports authorities allege an assistant coach working for Verner improved the team's standing by improperly recruiting more than a dozen players from American Samoa and offering them housing in Stockton, 80km south of Sacramento.
■ SOCCER
Boozing players banned
Four leading South Korea players were banned from the national team for a year by the Korean Football Association yesterday for drinking and cavorting in a brothel during this year's Asian Cup. The players -- Middlesbrough striker Lee Dong-guk, captain Lee Woon-jae, Kim Sang-sik and Woo Sung-yong -- were named in news reports as drinking until the early hours at a Jakarta brothel the day before a 2-1 loss to Bahrain in July. Lee Woon-jae must also serve 80 hours of community service, with the other players to perform 40 hours.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with