Robert Allenby, who is coming off year end wins in Australia and South Africa, fired a three-under 67 to grab a share of the lead after the third round of the PGA Tour’s Sony Open.
The 38-year-old Australian is tied with American Ryan Palmer at the US$5.5 million tournament.
Allenby, who is seeking his first USPGA Tour win in almost nine years, played through the pain of a sprained ankle that he hurt on Monday before the tournament started.
PHOTO: REUTERS
He tested the ankle in Wednesday’s Pro-Am and then decided to give it a go for real on Thursday. So far the decision has paid off. He has gone 32 holes without a bogey.
The pair at 11-under 199 for a three-stroke lead over Steve Stricker (69), Davis Love (68), Troy Matteson (68) and defending champion Zach Johnson (70).
Five more players, including SBS Championship runner-up Rory Sabbatini (67) and Tom Lehman (68), were another shot back at seven-under 203.
■JOBURG OPEN
AFP, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
South African Charl Schwartzel fired a seven-under-par 64 on Saturday to take a four-stroke lead after three rounds of the Joburg Open.
The pre-tournament favorite lies on 195, 18 under par for the 6,940m Royal Johannesburg and Kensington course as he seeks back-to-back European Tour victories, having won the Africa Open in East London last weekend.
German Martin Kaymer was the last winner of consecutive tournaments on the European circuit, topping the French Open and Scottish Open leaderboards within eight days last July.
Schwartzel, a 25-year-old from Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, holds his four-shot advantage over former Ryder Cup star Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland, who carded a 67 on the par-71 layout. South African Hendrik Buhrmann returned a 69 during a round delayed several times by bad weather to occupy third.
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