TENNIS
Spain win Hopman Cup
Spain secured a surprise victory in the Hopman Cup with a comeback triumph against Serbia in the final of the mixed teams event on Saturday in Perth, Australia. Fernando Verdasco and Anabel Medina Garrigues beat the more fancied pairing of Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic 6-4, 7-5 in the deciding mixed doubles to secure a 2-1 win. Djokovic had already defeated Verdasco 6-3, 7-5 in the opening singles before Medina Garrigues prevailed in a tense clash against Ivanovic, 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2.
GOLF
Weather hits opener again
The official start of this year’s PGA Tour was postponed for a second consecutive day because of strong gusting winds at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii on Saturday. First-round play in the PGA Tour’s season-opening event was scrapped on Friday because of similar conditions and hopes of playing 36 holes on Saturday had to be abandoned. Winds gusted up to 64kph across the Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course, making the layout unplayable. On some of the more exposed holes on the back nine, golf balls rolled uphill when dropped on the greens as a test by officials. Organizers said they planned to complete 36 holes yesterday and 18 today in a tournament cut to 54 holes.
BASKETBALL
Love suffers another break
Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love has broken a bone in his right hand, the same hand that was broken during the NBA pre-season. An MRI exam on Saturday showed a break in the third metacarpal — one of the two bones that he broke during the pre-season in October last year, when Love said he was hurt doing push-ups on his knuckles as part of his training regimen. The most recent injury to his shooting hand apparently occurred during Thursday’s 101-97 win over the Nuggets. The T-Wolves said Love’s injury will be evaluated later this week by a New York hand specialist.
SOCCER
Depor down Malaga
New RC Deportivo de La Coruna coach Domingos Paciencia made a winning start with a surprise 1-0 home victory over high-flying Malaga in La Liga on Saturday, his side’s third win in 20 games in all competitions this season. Pizzi’s 57th minute goal helped Depor climb off the bottom of the table. Elsewhere on Saturday, Levante UD and Valencia made the most of red cards for their opponents to come from behind and record wins that kept them in the hunt for European places. Levante beat Athletic Bilbao 3-1 and are sixth with 30 points. Valencia rose to seventh on 27 after a 2-1 victory at Granada. In Saturday’s other La Liga game Sevilla beat CA Osasuna 1-0.
SOCCER
Lazio close gap on Juve
SS Lazio closed the gap on Serie A leaders Juventus to five points on Saturday thanks to two late goals in a dramatic 2-1 win over nine-man Cagliari. Abdoulay Konko’s 79th minute strike levelled Marco Sau’s opener for Cagliari before a late penalty from Antonio Candreva sealed the win. Earlier on Saturday, Catania’s Francesco Lodi was sent off in the 13th minute for violent conduct as his team were held to a 0-0 home draw by Torino. Catania coach Rolando Maran was dismissed for protesting against a decision and Gonzalo Bergessio missed a 22nd-minute penalty for ninth-placed Catania.
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