■BASKETBALL
Warriors up for sale
Golden State Warriors owner Chris Cohan announced on Monday he is selling the NBA club even as Oracle Corporation chief executive Larry Ellison prepares to make an offer. The Warriors revealed on Monday they have retained Galatioto Sports Partners to handle the sale of the struggling squad, which at 19-50 held the third-worst record in the league after losses in eight of its past 10 games. Ellison, whose firm owns naming rights for the Warriors’ home arena, said two months ago he was interested in buying the club. The Warriors have reached the playoffs only once since 1994 and in 2008, the Warriors won 48 games, the most wins by any team to miss the playoffs in 25 years.
■SOCCER
Kisnorbo out of World Cup
Australian defender Patrick Kisnorbo is set to miss the World Cup finals because of an Achilles tendon injury, his Leeds United club manager Simon Grayson said. The defender was carried off in the early stages of his side’s 2-0 defeat to Millwall at Elland Road on Monday. Grayson said the 28-year-old former Hearts and Leicester defender, who has been on the fringes of the Australia squad, now had little chance of featuring for Pim Verbeek’s team in South Africa. Grayson said: “He’s been outstanding for us all season and I’m gutted for him because his dream was to play in the World Cup and it looks like it has been shattered.”
■SOCCER
FIFPro backs law campaign
The international players’ union is throwing its weight behind a campaign to let European law rule on all sports issues rather than treat them as special cases. FIFPro said on Monday that a move, endorsed by the International Olympics Committee, to separate some sports issues from European law was a serious challenge to players’ fundamental rights. The soccer union argued that it could deny them access to the courts and set a dangerous precedent for workers across Europe. FIFPro has teamed up with the European Elite Athletes Association — a union that covers players in basketball, cricket, handball, ice hockey, rugby and volleyball — to develop a joint-action plan leading up to the European Sports Forum in Madrid from April 19 to April 20.
■SOCCER
Arsenal appeals red card
Arsenal have appealed against the red card shown to defender Thomas Vermaelen in Saturday’s match against West Ham, it was announced on Monday. Vermaelen was sent-off shortly before half-time for bringing down the Hammers’ Guillermo Franco inside the penalty area. Arsenal were leading 1-0 and went on to win 2-0, with West Ham’s Alessandro Diamanti missing the penalty that followed Vermaelen’s red card for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
■RUGBY
Lauaki pleads guilty
Former All Blacks loose forward Sione Lauaki has pleaded guilty to assault in a Hamilton court and been remanded on bail, his Super 14 team said yesterday. The 28-year-old Lauaki, who played 17 tests for the All Blacks from 2005 to 2008, was expected to reappear in court on May 6 and would still be available for selection for the Waikato Chiefs in rugby union’s Super 14, the team said in a statement. Lauaki’s guilty plea related to an incident at a bar in Hamilton on March 5, New Zealand’s national news agency NZPA reported.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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