Geoff Ogilvy rolled to his third final in four starts in the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship on Saturday with an emphatic 4-and-2 semi-final victory over Stewart Cink.
Australia’s Ogilvy had three birdies and an eagle in the last four holes as he pulled away for the victory.
It was his second superb finish of the day after he closed out his morning quarter-final against teenage sensation Rory McIlroy with three birdies.
In the final, Ogilvy will face Paul Casey, who held off fellow Englishman Ross Fisher 2-and-1 in the other semi-final.
Casey led Fisher all the way, but didn’t wrap up the win until a birdie at 17.
■MAYAKOBA CLASSIC
AFP, RIVIERA MAYA, MEXICO
Americans Mark Wilson and Bo Van Pelt shared the lead at 11-under 199 on Saturday after the third round of the US PGA Mayakoba Golf Classic.
Van Pelt fired a three-under 67 to move into a share of the lead with Wilson, who shot 69.
Van Pelt birdied the eighth before taking his one and only bogey to finish the front nine. He added birdies at 15 and 16 to claim a share of the lead.
Wilson answered his bogeys at the fifth and 12th holes with birdies on the next holes and added a birdie at the 16th to stay level for the lead.
American Briny Baird fired a 67 to stand third on 200, one stroke ahead of countryman J.J. Henry and two ahead of American Chris Riley and Australian Jarrod Lyle.
■MOONAH CLASSIC
AP, FINGAL, AUSTRALIA
Australian Alistair Presnell birdied the 18th hole for a four-under 68 and a one-stroke victory yesterday at the Moonah Classic.
Presnell finished on a nine-under total of 279.
Australian veteran Peter O’Malley bogeyed the 17th for a 70 to finish second. Australian Michael Sim was third after a 70, three strokes behind, while Americans Skip Kendall (70) and Daniel Summerhays (72) were in a group of four tied for fourth, four back.
■INDONESIA OPEN
AP, BALI, INDONESIA
Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee set a record for most wins on the Asian Tour and took his first European Tour title in four years with victory yesterday at the Indonesia Open.
Thongchai shot a three-under 69 for a four-round total of 12-under 276, putting him two strokes ahead of three European pursuers — English pair Steve Webster (68) and Simon Dyson (69), and Sweden’s Alexander Noren (70).
Thongchai, who had a one-shot lead entering the round, set up his victory with three straight birdies from three to five that gave him a four-stroke buffer and the Thai went on to become the first man ever to win 11 Asian Tour titles.
■LPGA THAILAND
AFP, PATTAYA, THAILAND
Mexican golfing star Lorena Ochoa clinched LPGA Thailand yesterday with an impressive six-under 66 round that included seven birdies.
The world No. 1 started the tournament slowly on Thursday, but powered up the leaderboard with low scores throughout the weekend to finish on 274, three strokes ahead of second-placed South Korean Park Hee-young.
In third place was Paula Creamer on 278.
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