■TENNIS
ATP supports Andy Murray
Tennis chiefs insisted on Monday that Andy Murray was within his rights to withdraw from this week’s Marseille Open. The British star was due to be the top seed at the tournament, but he won’t be playing in France after deciding to continue his recovery from the Australian Open, where his bid to win a maiden grand slam title ended with a defeat by Roger Federer in the Melbourne final. Tournament director Jean-Francois Caujolle was quoted on Monday in a British national newspaper calling for Murray to be suspended after missing the tournament for the second straight year, but said later he was merely “really disappointed” with the Scot. The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) said that, in any event, there were no grounds for suspending Murray. “There are clear rules and regulations in place with regard to player withdrawals and Andy Murray followed them,” it said in a statement. “We understand a situation like this can be frustrating for a tournament, but we are looking forward to a great week of tennis in Marseille with a strong field led by six of the world’s Top 20 players.” Earlier on Monday, Caujolle told Sky Sports News: “I never said that he should be suspended, but it’s true I was really disappointed because he was my top player. “There is a responsibility for the credibility of all the game when it’s a top player. Sometimes you have to force yourself and be responsible ... I understand he’s quite young and it’s not a huge tournament but it’s quite disappointing and we had the same last year. Last year he played in Rotterdam and was a bit injured and I understand that. He sent me an e-mail saying next year I will play,” Caujolle said.
■SOCCER
Celtic’s profit plummets
Celtic’s profits have dropped dramatically and its debts have increased following the team’s failure to qualify for this season’s Champions League. The Scottish Premier League club says its pretax profit for the six months ending Dec. 31 was down 85 percent to £1.27 million (US$1.99 million) and its bank debt increased more than threefold to £3.13 million. Celtic finished runner-up to fierce city rival Rangers last season and was beaten in Champions League qualifying in August by Arsenal. Club chairman John Reid said soccer and commercial success went hand in hand. Celtic trails Rangers by 10 points with about a third of this season remaining.
■SOCCER
Uruguayan great dies
Juan Carlos Gonzalez a member of the Uruguayan squad that won the 1950 World Cup, died on Monday aged 85, local media reported. Gonzalez, who also won the Uruguayan title with Penarol, played in two of the Uruguayan side’s matches, but did not play in the final where they beat Brazil 2-1. His remains will be transferred to the Olympic Pantheon in Montevideo and will be buried alongside other Uruguayan sporting heroes.
■BASKETBALL
Gasol wins European award
Spaniard Pau Gasol has been voted European player of the year for last year, winning the award for the second year in a row, the governing body FIBA Europe said on Monday. The 2.15m center won an NBA championship title with the Los Angeles Lakers and followed that up by helping Spain to win their first European championship gold medal in Poland in September. Gasol came in ahead of Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki and Serbia’s Milos Teodosic in the voting by fans and a panel of experts.
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