BASKETBALL
Knicks not counting on Lin
Knicks interim coach Mike Woodson said on Monday he is not counting on Jeremy Lin to return for today’s Game 5 against the Miami Heat. Lin is working out again after surgery to repair a torn cartilage in his left knee on April 2. The Knicks said at the time he was expected to miss six weeks, meaning his season was likely over unless they reached the second round. The Knicks need point guard help after Baron Davis dislocated his right kneecap in Sunday’s 89-87 victory, but Woodson said he would not push Lin to play if he is not ready, and that it would have to be the decision of the player and doctors. “Again, I’d love to have Jeremy out there on the floor in uniform,” Woodson said during a conference call. “Don’t get me wrong, guys. Jeremy is a big piece of our team, but if the doctors say: ‘Mike, we’re taking a chance. He shouldn’t be out there playing,’ I can’t be that selfish and say: ‘Son, put on a uniform and play.’ I mean, I just can’t do that.” Woodson said he expects veteran Mike Bibby to start and added that Toney Douglas, now rarely used, could play. Davis was getting an MRI exam after becoming the second Knicks guard to go down during the series. Iman Shumpert was lost in Game 1.
CRICKET
Kolkata beat Delhi to go top
New Zealand batsman Brendan McCullum scored a half-century on Monday as the Kolkata Knight Riders beat the Delhi Daredevils by six wickets to take top spot in the Indian Premier League. McCullum hit seven fours in scoring 56 off 44 balls, leading the Knight Riders to 154-4 in 18.4 overs after they had restricted the Daredevils to 153-9. The Knight Riders have 17 points from 12 matches with eight victories, while the Daredevils are second with 16 points from 11 games. The Daredevils missed the void left by England batsman Kevin Pietersen, who has returned home to play the Test series against the West Indies. Captain Virender Sehwag (23) and Australian opener David Warner (21) gave the home team an electrifying start of 40 off 21 balls, before Jacques Kallis dismissed them in successive overs. Irfan Pathan top-scored with 36 off 22 balls, but was stumped by McCullum in the final over of the innings as he attempted to hit quick runs. McCullum and Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir (36) laid a solid platform of 68 off 42 balls, while Kallis scored 27 to keep the Knight Riders ahead in the game. Umesh Yadav dismissed McCullum and Kallis in successive deliveries, but not before the pair had added 60 for the second wicket.
SNOOKER
‘Rocket’ mulls quitting
Ronnie O’Sullivan is considering his future in the game after winning the world championship in Sheffield, England, for a fourth time with an 18-11 victory over Ali Carter on Monday. O’Sullivan called on the game’s governing body to treat players fairly, adding that he could quit due to the pressure to compete in an increasing number of tournaments. “I’m quite happy to move on, if I have to, because there’s a lot out there for me to do,” O’Sullivan told reporters. “I know there’s still a bit more in the tank for me in snooker, but certain people need to start doing the right thing. It’s up to the governing body to treat the players right and say that they don’t expect the players to travel to 28 tournaments a year. I don’t like feeling that you’re being blackmailed or forced to play in certain events. I’m not going to hang around for another two years to wait until things become what I believe to be fair. I’m not saying I have retired, but what I am saying is that my family has become the most important thing in my life.”
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