■SOCCER
Reserves beckon Berbatov
Tottenham will dump striker Dimitar Berbatov in the reserves if Manchester United do not come up with the £30 million (US$55.3 million) they want for the 27-year-old Bulgarian striker, who has handed in a transfer request to try to force a move. With the transfer window to close on Monday, United will have to look sharp if they are to make a move for the sharpshooter, whose unsettled stance led coach Juande Ramos to leave him on the bench for Saturday’s defeat to Sunderland. Ramos deemed him psychologically unfit to play and a threat to dressing-room harmony — and media reports in London on Monday said he faced being banished from the first team altogether.
■OLYMPICS
Castro pans sports ‘mafia’
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public since falling ill two years ago, on Monday defended disgraced former Olympic taekwondo champion Angel Valodia Matos. Matos and his coach were both expelled from all international competitions on Saturday, after the athlete kicked the referee in the head when he was disqualified in a match at the Beijing Games. Matos hit out at Swedish referee Chakir Chelbat as soon as he was sent off for taking too much injury time in the middle of an over-80kg bronze medal bout. But Castro called for the athlete to be reinstated and denounced what he termed “the mafia” in the sport. “Nothing can make me remain silent against the mafia. They have managed to play with the rules of the Olympic committee,” the 82-year-old Castro said. “Appalled by a decision which seemed to him totally unjust, he protested and kicked the referee. His own coach had been the subject of attempted corruption ... he was outraged, he couldn’t hold back,” Castro said.
■OLYMPICS
Gold winners get US$51,000
China’s gold medal winners at the Beijing Olympics will be taking home cash along with their medals, state media reported yesterday. Each gold medalist will get 350,000 yuan (US$51,000), Xinhua news agency said, citing China’s General Administration of Sports. Gold medal winners received 200,000 yuan after the 2004 Games, the report said. The report did not say if silver and bronze medalists were also to be rewarded.
■BOXING
Ex-champ stabbed to death
Former boxing world champion Edip Sekowitsch, 50, died of multiple stab wounds outside a pub he owned in Vienna on Monday morning, Austrian media reported. Police said they are questioning an injured man who was apprehended near the crime scene, but it is still unclear whether he is a suspect. The victim, born as Edip Secovic in Serbia, was light-middleweight world champion of the World Athletic Association is 1988. One year later, he became the European Boxing Union European champion in his weight class. Sekowitsch, known in Austria as “the Serbian bull,” owned the Champ’s Pub in Vienna.
■BASKETBALL
Sun Yue signs with Lakers
Chinese guard Sun Yue (孫悅) has signed a multi-year contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, the National Basketball Association club said on Monday. The 23-year-old Sun played for the Chinese team at the just completed Beijing Olympics. In six games, Sun averaged 6.8 points and 2.5 assists. The 23-year-old, 2.06m Sun was originally selected by the Lakers in the second round (40th overall) of last year’s NBA draft.
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