■SOCCER
Arsenal red card stands
Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen will serve a one-match suspension after the Premier League club’s appeal against a red card he received against West Ham was rejected on Tuesday. “At a Regulatory Commission hearing today, a claim for wrongful dismissal from Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen was dismissed,” a Football Association statement read. The 24-year-old Belgian international saw red in the first half of Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Hammers for a last-man challenge on striker Guillermo Franco. Second-placed Arsenal are already without Vermaelen’s injured defensive partner William Gallas for Saturday’s league match at Birmingham City.
■CRICKET
Tendulkar skips Twenty20
Sachin Tendulkar yesterday rejected a growing clamor in India to play in next month’s World Twenty20 despite enjoying prime batting form in recent months. “I will not be playing the ICC World Twenty20,” Tendulkar told the CNN-IBN news channel. “I have not played Twenty20 Internationals from 2007 onwards and I don’t think it should become an issue now.” Tendulkar, who recently became the first man to score a double-century in one-day cricket, has played just one Twenty20 international in his 21-year, record-breaking career. The Mumbai star, who turns 37 next month, opted out of the first two T20 world championships in 2007 and last year, saying the younger members of the side were more suited for the shortest format of the game.
■SOCCER
EPL report ‘inaccurate’
Chinese digital television company Win TV described reports that it had retained the rights to broadcast the English Premier League (EPL) for another three years for US$50 million as “inaccurate” yesterday. A day earlier, Britain’s Independent newspaper reported that Win TV, a small subscriber-only service based in Shanghai, had successfully won the China rights for this year to 2013 in an article that was quickly picked up by local media. “I have nothing to inform you or to announce or to explain,” Win TV vice president Yu Liangxiao said by telephone from Shanghai. “What I can say is the online allegations are inaccurate. We are still in communication.”
■RUGBY UNION
Lauaki to play despite plea
The Waikato Chiefs have named Sione Lauaki at No. 8 to play the ACT Brumbies in Canberra tomorrow, a day after the former All Black pleaded guilty to an assault charge at a Hamilton court. The 28-year-old replaces Colin Bourke at the back of the pack as the Chiefs seek to move into playoff contention. Lauaki’s guilty plea related to an incident at a bar in Hamilton, local media reported. He will return to court in May.
■RUGBY UNION
Bastareaud signs deal
France international center Mathieu Bastareaud signed his first professional contract on Tuesday with Top 14 side Stade Francais, the club’s owner Max Guazzini said. The 21-year-old will stay at Stade for another three seasons. It caps a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of Bastareaud — capped eight times — since his career almost came to a premature halt when it was revealed he had lied about how he had suffered facial scars on last year’s Tour of New Zealand. He claimed to have been beaten up outside the French team hotel, when in fact he had fallen over a table in his hotel room in a drunken state. This revelation led to an abject apology from the French Government to their Kiwi counterparts.
■BOXING
Klitschkos target Haye
British WBA champion David Haye is the prize at stake for world heavyweight title holders Vitali and Vladimir Klitschko after the Ukrainian brothers said they might toss a coin for the right to fight him. WBC heavyweight champion Vitali and his brother Vladimir, who holds the WBO, IBO and IBF heavyweight titles, have both set their sights on Haye’s WBA crown if he successfully defends it against challenger John Ruiz on April 3. “The main obstacle for this match for me is [my brother] Vladimir ... we can’t make up our minds as to who will be boxing with Haye,” Vitali Klitschko told reporters on Tuesday ahead of his fight with European champion Albert Sosnowski on May 29. “We’ll probably have to toss a coin.”
■BASKETBALL
Arenas facing jail term
Prosecutors say NBA star Gilbert Arenas should go to jail for three months for bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room. His lawyer says the appropriate punishment is probation and community service. Both sides filed sentencing memoranda on Tuesday, three days before the Wizards point guard is to be sentenced for a felony gun charge. Arenas pleaded guilty on Jan. 15 to one count of violating the District of Columbia’s gun laws. As part of the plea deal, the government said it would not seek more than six months, although the judge can give Arenas anywhere from probation to the charge’s maximum term of five years. Arenas has been suspended for the rest of the season by the NBA.
■BASEBALL
Reyes to begin workouts
Shortstop Jose Reyes was expected to rejoin the New York Mets at their Florida training camp yesterday and begin workouts now that his elevated thyroid levels have normalized, the team said on Tuesday. The Mets said Reyes, 26, had been cleared to resume baseball activities, giving the two-times All-Star a remote chance to be ready for the opening day of the season on April 5. Reyes, who has four times stolen more than 50 bases in a season, was expected to be sidelined for between two and eight weeks. The Mets open their regular season against the Florida Marlins.
■SOCCER
Malaysia mulls legal bets
Malaysia plans to review proposals to legalize sports betting ahead of the World Cup finals in South Africa, a report said yesterday. “There are proposals, but we will see first,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times. The newspaper said sports betting may be legalized in time for the World Cup, which is played from June 11 to July 11. It said the Berjaya Group, a major Malaysian conglomerate with holdings ranging from lottery to casino operations, was seeking approval from the government to operate sports betting in the country. Illegal betting on soccer is rife in Malaysia and the World Cup is expected to see a surge of millions of dollars.
■GOLF
New Asian Tour event added
The Asian Tour added a new event to its schedule yesterday, with the Handa Singapore Classic making its debut in September. The tournament will offer US$400,000 in prize money, with the winner gaining a two-year exemption to the Asian Tour. It is the first time the Asian Tour has co-sanctioned an event with the Singapore PGA. “The Handa Singapore Classic is one of three new tournaments already on our calendar this year, with more to come,” the tour’s executive chairman Kyi Hla Han said.
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