CRICKET
Middlesex to get Malinga
Sri Lanka fast bowler Lasith Malinga is to play for Middlesex in English county cricket’s Twenty20 competition, the club announced on Thursday. The 28-year-old, whose unusual “slingshot” action makes him difficult to face, is one of the world’s leading limited-overs bowlers and is currently the leading wicket-taker in the Twenty20 Indian Premier League, having taken 20 scalps for the Mumbai Indians. Malinga’s international commitments mean he will be unavailable for Middlesex’s opening three T20 matches against Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, but he is down to lead the attack in its final seven group games. His first appearance for Middlesex is due to be against Essex at Lord’s on June 21.
ICE HOCKEY
Coyotes to host Kings
The National Hockey League’s (NHL) conference finals begin this weekend, when the third-seeded Phoenix Coyotes host the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Kings. The teams face off in Game 1 of the best-of-seven Western Conference final in Arizona tomorrow. Phoenix will also host Game 2 on Tuesday, before the series shifts to Los Angeles. The Eastern Conference final, which will feature the sixth-seeded New Jersey Devils versus either the New York Rangers or the Washington Capitals, starts on Monday, with Game 2 on Wednesday. If the top-seeded Rangers beat the Capitals in Game 7 of their East semi-final at Madison Square Garden tonight, they will host the Devils in the first two games. If the seventh-seeded Capitals win, the Devils will host the opening two games of the series.
TABLE TENNIS
Ding Ning replaces Guo Yan
World No. 1 Ding Ning will replace Guo Yan in China’s table tennis women’s team for this year’s London Olympics, the sport’s world ruling body said. Li Xiaoxia and Guo Yan had originally sealed the two spaces available in the singles by virtue of their world rankings after occupying the top two spots in June last year, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) said. However, with Guo suffering from an undisclosed injury, the 21-year-old Ding, who took over the top ranking in November last year, will join Li in the singles and team events at the London Games, which take place from July 27 to Aug. 12. Each International Table Tennis Federation member association is permitted a maximum of two players by ranking in the singles and three in the team event. Guo Yan’s place in the team event will be taken by former world champion Guo Yue. Ding, who captured last year’s world singles title in Rotterdam, has risen from third to first in the rankings over the past year.
SOCCER
Blackburn plot return
Blackburn Rovers will instigate a number of changes in the coming months as they plan to fight their way back into the Premier League at the first attempt, the club’s unpopular Indian owners Venky’s said. Since the Indian poultry giant’s US$37 million takeover in November 2010, the club have struggled on the pitch, leading to regular fan protests as the 1995 Premier League champions failed to stave off the drop to the Championship. Blackburn’s relegation was confirmed with a 1-0 home defeat by Wigan Athletic on Monday, but B. Balaji Rao, a director and member of the family that owns Venky’s, is confident the club will quickly return to the elite group. “We were certainly not expecting to be relegated. It was the saddest bit of news for me since my mother passed away,” Rao said yesterday. “But we will bounce back within a year.”
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