BASEBALL
Playoffs expand to 10 teams
Major League Baseball expanded its playoff format to 10 teams by adding a second wild card in each league on Friday. The decision establishes a new one-game, wild-card round in each league between the teams with the best records who are not division winners, meaning a third-place team could win the World Series. This is the first change in MLB’s playoff structure since the 1995 season, when wild-card teams were first added. “This change increases the rewards of a division championship and allows two additional markets to experience playoff baseball each year,” commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. As part of MLB’s labor deal, the Houston Astros will switch to the AL for 2013, creating two 15-team leagues with three divisions each.
BASKETBALL
Lin up for monthly US award
New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin’s rise to fame has garnered him a nomination for the US Sports Academy’s Male Athlete of the Month award. Lin was nominated for going from being a former Harvard standout who was cut by two NBA teams, to an unlikely phenomenon for the Knicks. The 23-year-old scored 25 points and dished out 7 assists in his first start on Feb. 4, as the Knicks went on a seven-game winning streak with Lin as a starter. In his 13 starts last month, Lin averaged 22.3 points and 9.8 assists a game. Last month’s awards will be open for voting until March 13 at http://ussa.edu/ballots/athlete-of-the-month. The public’s votes along with the academy’s selection committee determine the winners. Taiwan’s Yani Tseng was named the academy’s Female Athlete of the Year last year after winning the monthly award twice, following stellar performances in July and September. Last year’s online Athlete of the Year ballot drew as many as 50,000 votes a day.
FORMULA ONE
Lotus set pace in testing
Lotus driver Romain Grosjean set the fastest time in Formula One testing in Barcelona for the second successive day on Friday, clocking a best lap of 1 minute, 22.614 seconds. Grosjean’s French compatriot Jean-Eric Vergne, who had topped the time charts with a 1 minute, 23.614 second lap in the Toro Rosso in the morning session, finished the day as second overall fastest. World champion Sebastian Vettel, in the Red Bull, was third, ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Vettel said that some new parts will be added to the Red Bull for the final two days of testing. “We have some new bits for the next two days and then we’ll know a little bit more,” he said. Testing continues through today ahead of the first race of this year’s Formula One season in Melbourne, Australia, on March 18.
SOCCER
Blatter desperate for change
FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Friday that he is desperate to see goal-line technology introduced to soccer as quickly as possible. Blatter is in England for a meeting of the rule-making body the International FA Board (IFAB), which is due to receive reports on the testing of various goal-line systems ahead of a final decision in July. The FIFA supremo had been opposed to goal-line technology, but a goal by England midfielder Frank Lampard that was controversially not given against Germany at the 2010 World Cup was enough to change his mind. “We don’t want a repeat of the last World Cup,” he 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
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