A blogger in China who made a death threat against Roger Federer said he had apologized, but remained at large after vowing to “assassinate” the world No. 1, according to an Internet posting.
An Internet user under the name “Blue Cat Polytheistic Religion Founder 07” threatened the tennis player before he arrived to play, prompting organizers to step up security for the Shanghai Masters, which started on Sunday.
“I have not been arrested,” said a posting on China’s popular baidu.com site, where the original threat also appeared.
Photo: Reuters
“I took the initiative to contact the relevant people to apologize,” said the message, which was posted at about midday on Tuesday.
The original threat read: “On October 6, I plan to assassinate Federer for the purpose of tennis extermination.”
The user also posted a doctored image showing a decapitated Federer on his knees on a tennis court, with an axe-wielding executioner standing next to him.
Shanghai Masters organizers said last week ahead of the competition that they were taking the bizarre threat “seriously,” while Federer himself labeled it a “distraction” after arriving in the Chinese commercial hub.
“Obviously maybe it’s a little bit of a distraction, there’s no doubt about it,” Federer said on Sunday. “It was something just very small on a Web site, nothing clear and concrete, people just debating.”
Federer’s wife and twin daughters have not traveled to China, but he said that decision had nothing to do with the threats.
Federer has been surrounded by a dozen security guards in dark suits, who also stayed on the sidelines around the court when he practised on Tuesday. His first match was scheduled for yesterday.
In 1993, former world No. 1 Monica Seles was stabbed by a fan during a match in Hamburg.
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