BASKETBALL
Heat on familiar ground
LeBron James and Dwyane Wade know what to expect from the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. That’s because they were in the same spot a year ago. Smarting from a Game 2 home loss last year, the Miami Heat went into Dallas last season and were inspired — they used the word desperate as well — from start to finish in a Game 3 victory. The Heat were looking to ensure that trend did not repeat itself last night, when the championship series was to resume on Miami’s home floor. After a day off to rest and travel, the teams resumed practice on Saturday. Predictably, the moods were light around both the Thunder and the Heat, neither team seeming overly tense after splitting the first two games in Oklahoma City.
SOCCER
Croatia face big fines
Croatian soccer chiefs on Saturday pleaded with UEFA not to punish the national side for the actions of a minority, as it faced possible hefty sanctions for fans’ racist chanting against Italy’s Mario Balotelli. “The Croatian Football Federation appeals to UEFA not to punish the Croatian national team ... and not to associate it with a section of fans who actually are not supporters, but hooligans who should be isolated from all sports events,” it said. The organization made the appeal after UEFA announced that it was taking action against the federation following complaints from a racism monitoring body that Croatia fans taunted Balotelli during Thursday’s Group C match in Poznan, Poland. A photographer who also heard the chants saw a steward pick up a banana from the pitch during the match, which ended 1-1. UEFA’s Disciplinary and Control Body is to announce its decision tomorrow, with a stiff penalty possible after it previously threatened Russia with a six-point deduction from its next Euro 2016 qualifying campaign in the event of further fan violence.
TENNIS
Zheng Jie reaches semi-final
China’s Zheng Jie reached the semi-finals of the Birmingham WTA grasscourt tournament on Saturday, but torrential rain left organizers with a nightmare backlog of matches. Zheng got the better of Italian fourth seed Roberta Vinci 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in a quarter-final already held over from Friday. The world No. 32 will play the winner of the quarter-final between Jelena Jankovic and Misaki Doi, which was suspended on Edgbaston Priory Club’s Centre Court because of rain. Jankovic was leading 2-0 in the opening set when the weather intervened. Russia’s Ekatarina Makarova is also through to the last four after dodging the showers to beat Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. The Russian will now take on either Melanie Oudin or Irinia Falconi.
SOCCER
Moyes ‘happy at Everton’
Everton manager David Moyes said on Saturday that he was happy at Goodison Park despite speculation linking him with a switch to Tottenham as Harry Redknapp’s replacement. Moyes, who has spent 10 years at Everton, told the BBC: “All I can say is that I have had no contact and if I had had any I would have told my chairman [Bill Kenwright]. I hope to meet all my ambitions at Everton, but you never know in this game.” Moyes has battled against a tight budget at Everton, but last season took the club to seventh in the Premier League, one place above city rivals Liverpool.
CYCLING
Albasini wins eighth stage
GreenEdge rider Michael Albasini clinched the eighth and penultimate stage of the Tour of Switzerland on Saturday, while Portugal’s yellow jersey wearer Rui Costa held on to his chances of overall victory. Switzerland’s Albasini broke away 17km from the end of Saturday’s stage, a 148km ride from Bischofszell to Arosa, to finish ahead of Spain’s Mikel Nieve and Levi Leipheimer of the US. Luxembourg’s Frank Schleck, who is Costa’s closest rival in the overall standings, was fourth on the stage, but Portugal’s Costa, of the Movistar team, went into yesterday’s final stage with a 14-second lead. Costa was 14th on Saturday, 50 seconds behind Schleck.
GOLF
Fichardt leads at St Omer
South Africa’s Darren Fichardt stormed into a five-shot lead at the St Omer Open on Saturday, while overnight leader Kim Si-hwan crashed to a third round 81 to be 11 shots off the pace. Fichardt, chasing a third European Tour title, carded a two-under-par 69 in the third round, five shots ahead of England’s Simon Wakefield. The South African thrived in the strong winds at St Omer Golf Club, hitting five consecutive birdies on the front nine. However, South Korean Kim dropped six shots in his opening seven holes and ultimately signed for an 81 and four-over for the tournament. Fichardt has two European Tour titles to his name — the 2001 Sao Paulo Brazil Open and the 2003 Qatar Masters.
SOCCER
Polish fans fight police
Police detained at least three drunk and unruly Poland fans in the southwestern Polish city of Wroclaw on Saturday after a Euro 2012 match that saw the Czech Republic eliminate Poland 1-0, police said. Several Poland fans upset over the result “began a brawl among themselves and then started hurling bottles at the police, who quickly managed to bring the situation under control,” Wroclaw police spokesman Pawel Petrykowski said. “At least three people were detained,” he said, adding the incident was an isolated one. No further incidents were reported after midnight.
BASKETBALL
Fever beat Sky 84-70
Jessica Davenport scored 19 points to lead the Indiana Fever to an 84-70 victory over the Chicago Sky on Saturday night. Katie Douglas had 15 points, Briann January added 14 and Tamika Catchings 12 to help Indiana (5-3) end a three-game losing streak. Catchings shot three-for-12 from the field, but made six of eight from the line to pass Lisa Leslie atop the Women’s National Basketball Association career free-throws made list with 1,478. Davenport was perfect, shooting nine-for-nine from the field and making her only free-throw attempt. Sylvia Fowles scored 26 points to lead Chicago (7-2). Swin Cash added 15 points and Courtney Vandersloot had 12. Epiphanny Prince, the league’s leading scorer at 24.3 points per game, had seven points before leaving late in the second quarter with a right foot injury. She was on crutches after halftime. In San Antonio, Texas, Sophia Young and Becky Hammon scored 24 points each to lead San Antonio to an overtime victory against Los Angeles. Danielle Adams added 18 points and Jia Perkins had 10 for the Silver Stars (4-4). Young and Hammon combined for 11 points in the extra period as San Antonio outscored Los Angeles 15-2. Candace Parker overcame a lethargic start to finish with 21 points for the Sparks (7-3), who shot just one-for-nine in overtime and lost for the second straight night.
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