■FOOTBALL
Boldin to miss game
Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin had surgery to repair a sinus fracture on Thursday and will miss at least one NFL contest, the team said on Friday. Boldin, who turned 28 on Thursday, suffered the injury as a result of the hits he received from New York Jets safeties Kerry Rhodes and Eric Smith late in last Sunday’s game. Smith was suspended one game for what the league termed a flagrant violation of player safety rules. His helmet-to-helmet hit with 27 seconds remaining in the Jets’ 56-35 victory knocked Boldin cold.
■COLLEGE FOOTBALL
BYU extends winning streak
Max Hall threw for 303 yards and two touchdowns as No. 8-ranked Brigham Young University extended its winning streak to 15 games by beating Utah State 34-14 in college football on Friday. The Cougars converted three turnovers into 17 points while pulling ahead 24-0 in the first quarter, and held on for their ninth straight victory over the Aggies. Utah State became the first team to score against BYU in nearly a month with two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but the Aggies were down 34-0 at the end of the third quarter. Hall threw two interceptions and was sacked for the first time this season in the final quarter.
■BASEBALL
Yankee to have surgery
Yankees closer Mariano Rivera will have surgery on Tuesday on his sore right shoulder. New York Mets medical director David Altchek will operate at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Altchek operated on catcher Jorge Posada’s shoulder last summer. Altchek will shave down calcification of the A.C. joint on the top of Rivera’s shoulder. Rivera is expected to be ready for the start of spring training in mid-February. The 38-year-old Rivera had 39 saves this year, and his 1.40 ERA was his best since 2005.
■BASKETBALL
Parker wins WNBA MVP
Candace Parker received the WNBA’s Most Valuable Player award on Friday, becoming the first player to win it and Rookie of the Year honors in the same season. The Los Angeles Sparks star was unanimously selected rookie of the year. The awards capped a big run for Parker, who was college player of the year last season for national champion Tennessee. Parker also was a member of the gold-medal winning US team at the Beijing Olympics. Parker edged Connecticut’s Lindsay Whalen and Seattle’s Sue Bird in the MVP race. Parker, the top overall draft pick this year, averaged 18.5 points and 9.5 rebounds. She had a high of 40 points and grabbed 10 or more rebounds in 17 games. She led the league in double-doubles with 17, led the league in rebounding and led rookies in scoring, blocks and minutes.
■BASKETBALL
Shock leads in WNBA finals
Katie Smith scored 22 points and the Detroit Shock built a big lead in the first quarter, then hung on to defeat the San Antonio Silver Stars 69-61 on Friday and take a 2-0 lead in the WNBA finals. Game 3 in the best-of-five series is today, when Detroit will try to wrap up its second title in the last three years. Deanna Nolan and Kara Braxton added 12 points each for the Shock, who led 19-2 less than 6 minutes into the game. Becky Hammon finished with 24 points for San Antonio, including 11 of 12 from the free-throw line.
■SOCCER
Wuhan fans in street protest
Tens of thousands of soccer fans marched in Wuhan, China, blocked traffic and some charged a police blockade in protest against an eight-game suspension of a star player, a Hong Kong newspaper said. The Chinese Football Association suspended defender Li Weifeng and fined him 8,000 yuan (US$1,169) on Tuesday for a scuffle with a player from an opposing team who was given the same punishment. The Sept. 28 game ended in a 1-1 draw. Li, 30, is a former captain of China’s national team who played in the Olympic squad in August. Li’s Wuhan Guanggu club later announced its withdrawal from the Chinese Super League in protest, saying it would sue the Football Association, which fueled the outrage of Wuhan’s fans. Tens of thousands hit the streets on Thursday, shouting slogans like “Dissolve the Football Association” and “the Super League is finished,” and staged a sit-in to block traffic, Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper reported yesterday. Wuhan’s deputy mayor went to the scene to try to calm the fans and about an hour later they left peacefully, the newspaper said.
■SOCCER
Moggi charged with fraud
Former Juventus executive Luciano Moggi, a leading figure in a match-fixing scandal that shook Italian soccer, was ordered by a court on Friday to stand trial on charges of sports fraud and criminal association. The trial will open on Jan. 20 in Naples, his lawyer Paolo Trofino said. The ANSA news agency said another 23 people, including club officials and referees, were also indicted by judge Eduardo De Gregorio on charges of conspiring to commit sports fraud. Former Italian soccer federation president Franco Carraro and federation secretary Francesco Ghirelli were cleared. Moggi was banned from soccer for five years by a sports court in 2006 on charges of influencing the outcome of matches. He denies any wrongdoing.
■RUGBY UNION
Wilkinson undergoes surgery
England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson underwent surgery on Friday on his injured left knee, with his Newcastle club reporting no complications, although he is still unlikely to play again before Christmas. England’s 2003 World Cup final match-winner suffered his latest injury in Tuesday’s Premiership match against Gloucester, a setback that has ruled him out of the fall Tests against the Pacific Islanders, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The 29-year-old Wilkinson’s career has been blighted by repeated injury setbacks since the World Cup almost four years ago. His latest setback came just four games into his return from summer shoulder surgery that meant he missed England’s two-Test New Zealand tour. Newcastle rugby director Steve Bates said: “Jonny has had his operation and the reports are that it went well. They are optimistic about it and we will have to see how it progresses.”
■TENNIS
Williams out of Kremlin Cup
Serena Williams has blamed a knee injury for her decision to pull out of this week’s US$2.4 million Kremlin Cup. “I was experiencing knee problems since the US Open and now I need a break to regain my top form,” the US star told organizers of the joint ATP and WTA event on Friday. She added: “I played a lot of events this year and now I need a break to recover. My aim this year is to regain the world’s top ranking. I played in the final here last year and will now lose a lot of points. But for now my only wish is to have some rest to recover and to be in my top form at Doha.”
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