TENNIS
Sock socks it to Bogomolov
US wild card Jack Sock defeated seventh seed Alex Bogomolov 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in the opening round on Monday of the ATP Tour’s Atlanta Open in Atlanta, Georgia. The 19-year-old Sock converted two of his three break points, while saving six of the seven chances he faced on serve in the 2 hour, 15 minute match. Russia’s Bogomolov has now lost five consecutive matches and falls to 9-21 on the season. Sock is no stranger to winning lower-level matches as he captured the US Open junior doubles title in 2010 and the mixed doubles crown last year. He is now trying to raise his game to the highest level, and to help him do that, he recently hired former world top 10 player Joakim Nystrom as his coach.
BASEBALL
Reds’ Votto out for weeks
National League Central leaders Cincinnati were hit with the news on Monday that All-Star slugger Joey Votto needs left knee surgery and will miss three or four four weeks. Votto, the 2010 NL MVP, had been playing with the injury since last month, but an evaluation on Monday determined he will need to have his torn meniscus repaired. “It is in my best interest, and in the best interest of the team, to do it now so that I can be healthy during the last two months of the pennant race,” Votto told the Reds’ Web site. The Reds had a six-game winning streak snapped by Arizona on Monday and Pittsburgh are breathing down their neck in the division. Votto, who is batting .342 with 14 home runs and 49 RBIs, has been replaced by rookie Todd Frazier.
BASKETBALL
Miami Heat going to China
The NBA champions Miami Heat will play two pre-season games against the Los Angeles Clippers in China this fall. The teams will meet Oct. 11 at MasterCard Center in Beijing and Oct. 14 at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai. It is the first time the reigning NBA champions will play in the NBA China Games, which will mark their sixth edition. Eight NBA teams will play in eight international games in October as part of the league’s international pre-season schedule. The Dallas Mavericks will play games in Barcelona and Berlin and the Boston Celtics will play games in Istanbul, Turkey, and Milan, Italy, against top Euroleague teams. Toronto and the New York Knicks will play in Montreal and Minnesota, while Detroit will play in Winnipeg. In 2004, the NBA became the first US professional sports league to play games in China, with two games between the Houston Rockets and Sacramento.
GOLF
Woods to play with Garcia
Former world No. 1 Tiger Woods will play alongside Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose in the opening two rounds of The Open in Lytham, England, later this week. Woods, Spaniard Garcia and Briton Rose will tee off at 9:42 in tomorrow’s first round. The 36-year-old American is looking to end a four-year drought in major championships, having won the last of his 14 “big four” titles at the 2008 US Open. Garcia, 32, and Rose, 31, are among the best modern-day players never to have won a major. Among the other highlights of Monday’s draw was the grouping of world No. 1 Luke Donald with US left-hander Phil Mickelson and Australian Geoff Ogilvy at 1443. World No. 2 Rory McIlroy will partner 2010 Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and last year’s USPGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley at 1421.
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