BASEBALL
MLB stars to play Taiwan
Major League Baseball will send a team of All-Stars to Taiwan in November for a series of exhibition games. The MLB All-Stars will play five games against Taiwan’s national team starting on Nov. 2, MLB announced on Thursday. Games will take place in Taipei (Nov, 2), Greater Taichung (Nov. 3 and Nov. 4) and Greater Kaohsiung (Nov. 5 and Nov. 6). MLB and the players are also in talks to have Oakland and Seattle play regular-season games in Japan next season.
TENNIS
Tsonga, Gasquet advance
France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet won in straight sets to reach the quarter-finals of the Moselle Open on Thursday, while Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany lost to a qualifier. The top-seeded Tsonga beat French qualifier Mathieu Rodrigues 6-3, 6-4 to line up a match with Nicolas Mahut, who outlasted 2003 champion Arnaud Clement 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 in an all-French encounter. The second-seeded Gasquet cruised past Olivier Rochus of Belgium 6-2, 6-1 and next plays Gilles Muller of Luxembourg. However, there was an upset for seventh-seeded Kohlschreiber, who lost to Dutch qualifier Igor Sijsling 6-4, 7-5. Sijsling now meets fourth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia.
RUGBY WORLD CUP
Fiji coach defends hakas
Fiji coach Sam Domoni said critics of the famous haka could break-dance before games if they like, but they could not stand in the way of Pacific tradition. Domoni was speaking after South Africa coach Peter de Villiers said the pre-match war dances were becoming over-exposed during the World Cup and were in danger of losing their impact. Fiji captain Deacon Manu dismissed de Villiers as a “bit of a spin doctor” and said the hakas would give important pointers about both teams.
GOLF
Solheim Cup matchups set
US captain Rosie Jones has put her faith in big hitters Cristie Kerr and Michelle Wie in the opening series of foursomes as the US begin their title defense of the Solheim Cup against Europe at Killeen Castle in Ireland. Jones picked world No. 3 Kerr and Wie, unbeaten on her debut two years ago, as her top pairing and they face the Swedish duo of Maria Hjorth and Anna Nordqvist. Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome, who hurt her right wrist landing a huge fish a couple of weeks ago, are in match two against England’s Melissa Reid and Karen Stupples. European captain Alison Nicholas opted for a blend of youth and experience as she paired up Catriona Matthew, a veteran of six Solheims, and rookie Azahara Munoz. They take on Stacy Lewis and Angela Stanford.
GOLF
Liam Bond leads in Australia
Welsh 41-year-old rookie Liam Bond, who only escaped qualifying school at the 16th attempt last year, took a one-shot lead at the Austrian Open on Thursday. He enjoyed seven birdies, with four coming in the final five holes, against one bogey, for a six-under 66 to lead by one from Denmark’s Thomas Norret, Australian Daniel Gaunt, Dutchman Joost Luiten and Steve Webster of England. It was a timely round for Bond, who has yet to record a top 20 finish this season and who came into the tournament on a run of five successive missed cuts. At 193 on The Race to Dubai order of merit, Bond still faces a huge struggle to keep his card for next year. Of the three Walker Cup players making their professional debuts in the event, Andy Sullivan had the best day with a level-par 72.
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