BASEBALL
Bonds plaque missing
The commemorative plaque honoring Barry Bonds’ record 756th home run has gone missing from AT&T Park. San Francisco Giants spokeswoman Staci Slaughter says the club is in the process of replacing the plaque that hung on the brick facade inside the ballpark beneath the flag court area in right-center field until a few days ago. The team is reviewing video in an effort to determine what might have happened, Slaughter said. Bonds, the seven-time National League Most Valuable Player, broke Hank Aaron’s home run record on Aug. 7, 2007, at home in San Francisco. The slugger has not played since that season, finishing his 22-year major league career with 762 career homers.
TENNIS
Berdych wins in Barcelona
World No. 6 Tomas Berdych was given a tough workout by Nikolay Davydenko at the Barcelona Open on Tuesday before seeing off the former third-ranked player 3-6 7-5, 6-4 to secure a berth in the last 16. Czech Berdych, who had a bye into the second round and is seeded three on the clay at the Real Club de Tenis, served poorly against the 31-year-old Russian, who had won nine of their 11 previous matches. After having his service broken twice in losing the first set, Berdych managed to turn things around to edge the second, before lifting his game in the decider and sealing victory with a ninth ace. Latvian qualifier Ernests Gulbis provided the surprise of the day when he thumped former world No. 7 and 12th seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain, who won the event in 2010, 6-3, 6-4. Rafa Nadal was due to begin his bid for an eighth Barcelona title in nine years with a second-round clash against unseeded Argentine Carlos Berlocq yesterday.
FORMULA ONE
Ferrari pinpoint problem
The rear-wing problem that wrecked Fernando Alonso’s hopes of winning in Bahrain last weekend was caused by a rare component failure within the drag reduction system (DRS), Ferrari said after an investigation. “It’s the first problem of its kind on this system seen on the three years during which it has been used,” the Italian team said on their Web site. “The failure is not something that causes concern for the long term.” The DRS is a driver-operated adjustable flap that can be opened to provide more speed for overtaking in certain designated zones on the circuit. Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said Sunday’s failure had prevented the Spaniard, who had been in second place, from fighting Red Bull’s eventual winner Sebastian Vettel for the victory.
BASKETBALL
Bobcats fire coach Dunlap
Mike Dunlap was fired as coach of the Charlotte Bobcats on Tuesday after turning around the NBA club following the worst season in league history. Dunlap was named coach of the Bobcats last June, replacing Paul Silas after Charlotte went 7-59, the worst winning percentage in NBA history. Under Dunlap this past season the Bobcats went 21-61 and edged Orlando by one game to avoid the worst record in the NBA. However, that was not enough for Dunlap to keep his job, Bobcats president of basketball operations Rod Higgins said after a meeting with team general manager Rich Cho. “Rich Cho and I conducted our season-ending review and met with coach Dunlap to reflect on this season,” Higgins said. “As an organization, it was decided that we needed to make a change with the head coach position.”
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