■BEER
Brewers receive boost
Stores emptied in South Korea and sales up in Japan — beer consumption has soared during the World Cup. “We hope that Kirin’s sales will increase more than four percent during this World Cup,” said Shinya Izumi, a spokesman for the Japanese brewery. Japanese brewers hope this year’s World Cup will reverse a previous downturn, after seeing sales fall by 4 percent since the last World Cup in 2006. In China, the world’s biggest market for beer, the amber nectar has been flowing freely since the start of the tournament. In the town of Zhuzhou, the country’s biggest brewer Tsingtao said that sales had almost doubled. Tsingtao said it had sold around 42,000 bottles a day, against 24,000 bottles before the tournament. During South Korea’s game against Argentina on Thursday, shops from the GS25 chain sold 345,000 bottles or cans of beer in South Korea — a 123 percent increase on the previous week and on June 12, the eve of the opening of the competition, Bokwang Family Mart, another chain of South Korean stores, said that sales of beer had doubled.
■ENGLAND
Fan vents frustration
An England fan who breached security to get into the team’s dressing room after their lackluster 0-0 draw with Algeria told them: “You are a disgrace,” the Sunday Mirror reported. Pavlos Joseph, 32, said he was looking for the toilet after the game when he mistakenly found his way into the dressing room in Cape Town, where he stumbled upon David Beckham and a naked Joe Cole. “Suddenly David spoke. He took a step towards me and said, ‘Whoa, who are you?’” Joseph told the paper. “I said, ‘I’m Pavlos and I actually need the toilet.’ For a moment, no-one said a word. Then I thought, What the heck. I’m in the England dressing room. Why not say something? I looked David straight in the eye and said, ‘David, we’ve spent a lot of money getting here. This is a disgrace. What are you going to do about it?’” Joseph added that the team’s performance was “woeful and not good enough” before being told to leave by an official, he said. Beckham brushed off the incident saying it had been “blown out of proportion.”
■ENGLAND
Rooney says sorry for rant
Wayne Rooney has apologized for an outburst at the end of England’s goalless World Cup draw with Algeria in which he hit out at fans who had jeered the team. “Last night, on reflection I said things in the heat of the moment that came out of frustration of both our performance and the result,” Rooney said in a statement issued by the English Football Association. “For my part I apologize for any offence caused by my actions at the end of the game.” As he walked off the pitch, Rooney had turned to a television camera and snapped: “Nice to see your own fans booing you. If that’s what loyal support is.” He then muttered a swear word as he stomped off.
■REFEREES
Experts to comment on ref
FIFA refereeing experts will comment today on the performance of match official Koman Coulibaly in the US’ 2-2 draw with Slovenia. Asked if FIFA was assessing Coulibaly’s display in Friday’s match, spokesman Nicolas Maingot said “we don’t make any comments on referees.” The referee from Mali sparked controversy by ruling out a US goal for a foul, but declined to identify which player was responsible.
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