■GOLF
Storms halt Singapore play
PHOTO: AFP
Heavy rain and the threat of lightning yesterday forced officials at the Singapore Open to suspend play halfway through the opening round of the US$5 million co-sanctioned event. The morning flights all managed to complete their rounds before action was halted at 2:15pm at the Serapong Course. Ian Poulter is the clubhouse leader after the Englishman fired a five-under-par 66, one ahead of Ernie Els of South Africa and Taiwanese qualifier Chan Yih-shin (pictured).
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Olympiakos club bombed
Greek police say a small bomb has exploded outside an Olympiakos fan club office in central Athens, causing minor damage and no injuries. A police statement says the bomb, made of camping-gas canisters tied together, damaged the club entrance and two cars parked outside early on Wednesday. There was nobody in the club. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack in the city’s Pangrati district. On Tuesday, Olympiakos lost to second-division club Panserraikos 3-1 in the Greek Cup.
■BASEBALL
McCourt fights wife’s return
Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is opposing his wife’s demand to be reinstated as a team executive. He cites insubordination and an inappropriate relationship she allegedly had with her bodyguard. McCourt’s attorney filed papers on Wednesday in a Los Angeles court, one day after his wife, Jamie McCourt, filed divorce papers seeking to regain her job as Dodgers chief executive. The documents filed by Frank McCourt accuse his wife of taking a trip with her bodyguard in early July to Israel on team business, but then heading to France for two-and-a-half weeks and billing the Dodgers for the trip. Scott Altman, a family law professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said if Jamie McCourt were to convince the judge that a 2004 marital property agreement that gave ownership of the team to her husband is not valid, either because she was misled or did not understand the agreement, the court can order a sale of the Major League Baseball franchise.
■SOCCER
Player charged with assault
West Ham defender Calum Davenport was charged on Wednesday with assaulting his sister during an incident in which her boyfriend stands accused of stabbing both him and the player’s mother. Davenport, 26, denies the charge of assault causing actual bodily harm. Sources said the woman in question was his sister Cara, 28. Her boyfriend Worrell Whitehurst, 25, has appeared in court charged with attacking the soccer player and his mother, Kim Stupple, 49. Davenport required surgery on both legs after the incident outside his family home in Bedford, England, on Aug. 22. “I am deeply shocked and disappointed at the decision that has been made to charge me with assault,” Davenport said in a statement. “I deny any wrongdoing and will plead not guilty. For legal reasons, I am unable to discuss the matter further at this time.”
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
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed