■BASKETBALL
Jones Cup dates announced
The R. William Jones Cup International Invitational Tournament, Taiwan’s top international hoop event, will be held from July 13 to July 21 this year, a Taiwanese basketball official said on Thursday. Seven men’s teams and five women’s teams will participate in the annual tournament at Taipei County’s Sinjhuang Stadium, said Lee Yi-chung, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association. The hosts will field the national teams and university All-Star teams in both the men’s and women’s competitions, Lee said. Several of Taiwan’s national players have injuries, however, and have said they will sit out in order to be in better shape to prepare for the Asian Games in November. Among the teams participating in the men’s competition are Japan’s national team, Lebanon’s national team, Iran’s national “B” team, a club team from western Australia and the Philippines’ national team. In the women’s competition, Japan, Kazakhstan and Lebanon will send their national teams to compete with the two Taiwanese teams.
■BASKETBALL
Wooden in ‘grave’ condition
Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, one of the most revered figures in US sport, was in “grave” condition in hospital on Thursday, according to multiple media reports. The 99-year-old Wooden was being treated at UCLA Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles television station KCAL each reported. Although his family could not be immediately reached for confirmation, leading officials attending Thursday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals were aware of Wooden’s failing health. “We discussed it at length and we decided that we would not declare his obituary now,” NBA Commissioner David Stern told reporters. Widely regarded as one of the best team builders in US sport, Wooden guided UCLA to an unprecedented 10 National Collegiate Athletic Association championship titles, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. Under his charge, Bruins teams registered a record 88-game winning streak from 1971 to 1974, four perfect 30-0 seasons and strung together 38 consecutive NCAA Tournament games from 1964 to 1974.
■BASEBALL
Yoshida jersey, bat wanted
The Chico Outlaws say the US Baseball Hall of Fame has asked for the jersey and bat that Japanese knuckleballer Eri Yoshida used in her debut with the team last weekend for a display in Cooperstown, New York. Yoshida pitched three innings and hit an RBI single in her only at-bat in her first game in the independent Golden Baseball League. The 18-year-old Yoshida became the first woman to play professional baseball in the US since Ila Borders in 2000 when she appeared in the game on May 29 against Tijuana. Yoshida will present the items to the Hall before a game she pitches in later this month. Her second appearance is set for next Saturday at home to the Yuma Scorpions.
■SOCCER
Mihajlovic takes Viola post
Fiorentina appointed Sinisa Mihajlovic as coach on Thursday after Cesare Prandelli agreed to manage Italy following the World Cup. Serbian Mihajlovic quit Catania last week after easily steering the modest Sicilians to safety in Serie A, saying he wanted to challenge himself at a bigger club. “Sinisa Mihajlovic will be officially presented tomorrow,” a statement from the Florence club said. Fiorentina enjoyed a successful run to the Champions League round-of-16 last season, but finished a disappointing mid-table in Serie A.
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