TENNIS
Roddick, Lu to face off again
Taiwanese star Lu Yen-hsun will play former world No. 1 Andy Roddick of the US later this year in a three-match exhibition series in Taiwan, the organizers said on Sunday. The American, who was beaten by Lu in the fourth round of the men’s singles at Wimbledon last year, has been invited to play against the Taiwanese in a best-of-three series in October, the organizers said. With his win over Roddick, Lu became the first Asian male player to reach the Wimbledon singles quarter-finals since 1995. Serbian Janko Tipsarevic, currently ranked 45th, will meet Taiwan’s Jimmy Wang as part of the same event at National Taiwan Sport University in Taoyuan, said Jeff Hsu, chief executive of Integration Sports. The players will also compete in a one-set doubles match, but the pairs had not yet been decided, Hsu said. Tickets are scheduled to go on sale in May.
SOCCER
Bualien take BML Crown
Hong Min Bualien claimed the BML title in a thrilling final game of the season against Taipei City on Saturday evening at the Bailing Bridge Sports Park in Shilin, Taipei. City only needed a draw to land the title, but with very few clear chances at either end, a single goal from Bualien early in the first half proved decisive. Bualien played with great craft and discipline to earn the victory and although City stretched Bualien, the expats were denied by good defending and goalkeeping. It was Bualien’s first title since 2004.
SOCCER
Bayern ‘nein’ to neighbors
Bayern Munich have said they will not help 1860 Munich, who are on the verge of bankruptcy. Bayern share Munich’s Allianz Arena with 1860 Munich who are mid-table in the Bundesliga’s second division and need 8 million euros (US$11.3 million) by the end of the month or the 1966 German champions face going out of business. “No help can be expected from us,” Bayern’s financial controller Karl Hopfer said. “It doesn’t work, we can’t just give a club 8 million euros as a gift. We didn’t cause the whole thing.” Bayern have already deferred 2 million euros worth of rent from 1860 for the Allianz Arena, but their neighbors are still way short of the cash needed.
SOCCER
Marseille second after win
Marseille moved into second place in Ligue 1 after edging Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 at Stade Velodrome on Sunday. All the goals came in the first half, with Andre Ayew giving Marseille victory after Clement Chantome had canceled out Gabriel Heinze’s opener for the hosts. The victory takes Didier Deschamps’s side to within four points of league leaders Lille with 10 matches remaining. PSG remain fifth, six points behind Marseille. The home side took the lead in the 16th minute when Heinze bent a free-kick into the bottom-left corner. PSG goalkeeper Gregory Coupet was at fault for the goal after positioning himself behind the wall, but the visitors’ equalizer owed just as much to disorganization in the opposing defense. Marseille spurned several opportunities to clear the ball, allowing Nene to fire a shot against the right-hand post, and Chantome followed up to slam the rebound home. The hosts’ restored their lead when Ayew scored with a firm header from close range. Earlier in the day, Monaco squandered the chance to move out of the relegation zone by losing 1-0 at home to Nancy. Monaco remain third from bottom, while Nancy climb three places to 14th. In the day’s other game Caen beat Arles-Avignon 2-0 to move up to 13th.
FIGURE SKATING
Kim Yu-na sues former agent
South Korea’s Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na is suing her former agent for failing to pay the athlete part of her endorsement earnings, her lawyer said yesterday. IB Sports, the agency Kim left in April last year, failed to pay her 894 million won (US$794,000) earned from advertisement deals for Hyundai Motor and other companies, Kim’s lawyer said. “We filed the suit last November and the first court hearing was held on March 16 in Seoul,” lawyer Lee Sang-hun said. “The sponsors continued to pay IB Sports for deals signed before April 2010 even after Kim left the agency, yet the firm did not give her a share at all,” he said. The figure skating champion dubbed “Queen Yu-na” in her home country was listed by Forbes magazine last year as one of the world’s highest-paid female athletes with annual earnings of US$9.7 million.
GOLF
Jacquelin wins Sicilian Open
France’s Raphael Jacquelin ended a four-year wait for his third European Tour title by winning the weather-delayed Sicilian Open yesterday. A 2-1/2 hour delay due to lightning on Sunday forced the leaders to play an extra day and Jacquelin held off a spirited challenge from England’s Anthony Wall. Only one shot separated the pair when darkness forced them to abandon play through 12 holes on Sunday. Wall twice wiped out the deficit early yesterday morning, but double-bogeyed the penultimate hole to give the 36-year-old Jacquelin the victory. Jacquelin finished at 12-under, with Wall one shot behind, while Jose Manuel Lara of Spain and Joel Sjoholm of Sweden shared third, five shots back, on the Donnafugata Golf Resort and Spa course.
BASEBALL
Angels’ Morales still on DL
Los Angeles Angels first baseman Kendrys Morales will begin the season on the disabled list (DL) recovering from the leg injury he suffered last year while celebrating a game-winning home run. Morales, coming back from surgery on his left ankle, has had difficulty running because of pain in the big toe of his left foot, according to a report on Major League Baseball’s Web site on Sunday. The 27-year-old Cuban, who hit .306 and belted 34 home runs in 2009, fractured his lower left leg in May last year jumping on home plate after smacking a game-ending Grand Slam. Angels manager Mike Scioscia said he was shutting Morales down to make sure he was fully fit when he returns to action.
BASKETBALL
Bynum, Brooks suspended
Andrew Bynum of the two-time reigning NBA champions the Los Angeles Lakers and Aaron Brooks of the Phoenix Suns were issued suspensions by the league on Sunday for actions in separate games. Lakers center Bynum was banished for two games without pay for a flagrant foul against Minnesota’s Michael Beasley with 6 minutes, 16 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of a 106-98 home victory for the Lakers on Friday. Brooks was banished for one game without pay for tossing a basketball at a referee and striking him in the leg with 7 minutes, 46 seconds to play in the fourth quarter of the Suns’ 108-97 home victory over Golden State on Friday. Beasley was knocked onto the court and hobbled off the court with a bruised left hip in Minnesota’s 15th loss in a row in games against the Lakers. “It was just a hard foul, a playoff foul,” Beasley said after the loss. “They are getting ready for the playoffs. It’s the kind of foul and the kind of basketball they’ve got to play and you’ve got to get used to playing against that.”
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