BASKETBALL
Mavericks owner fined
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been fined US$100,000 for confronting game officials with “inappropriate language” after his team’s 129-127 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday, the NBA said. Cuban’s on-court actions occurred after the Mavericks blew a 17-point lead over the Clippers with 4.5 minutes left in a wild encounter at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. “It was like a play-off game the last three or four minutes, everybody was mouthing back and forth and getting techs, and it became a brawl out there,” Mavericks forward Shawn Marion said after the game. The Mavericks lost despite outscoring the Clippers 60-40 in the paint and outrebounding them 47-38, as both teams shot more than 50 percent from the field.
RUGBY UNION
Toulon clinch home match
Holders Toulon clinched a home Heineken Cup quarter-final with a 15-8 win at Glasgow in their final Pool 2 clash on Saturday, while Ulster nabbed top spot and a quarter-final with No. 8 seeds Saracens after overcoming a 10-point deficit to prevail 22-19 over Leicester in Pool 5. The pair will be joined in the last eight by fellow group winners Leinster, Toulouse, Clermont and Munster, as well as Leicester and Saracens, the two best second-placed finishers. Toulon had already qualified, but needed victory to ensure a home match and got what they required thanks to England’s former World Cup winner Jonny Wilkinson, who kicked all his side’s points. South African scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar scored all Ulster’s points, with victory making them the only team to win all six pool matches this term. The defeat ended a run of 25 Heineken Cup matches unbeaten at home for Leicester, although they still claimed a spot in the last eight. Saracens claimed second in Pool 3 with a 64-6 thrashing of Connacht, as group winners Toulouse beat Italians Zebre 16-6. In the day’s other games, the Exeter Chiefes beat the Cardiff Blues 19-13 and Montpellier crushed Treviso 24-6.
GOLF
On-fire Reed cements lead
American Patrick Reed fired a nine-under-par 63 for the third straight day to improve his lead to seven strokes after the third round of the Humana Challenge on Saturday. Reed, who is looking for his second career USPGA Tour win, has a three-day total of 27-under 189, setting the record for lowest 54-hole score in relation to par in US Tour history. “It means a lot, but I’d rather set 72-hole records and year-end records,” Reed said. “It’s always good to have a 54-hole lead, especially with the one we have right now. We still have a lot of work to do and we have 18 holes tomorrow to get it done.” Charley Hoffman (66) and Brendon Todd (68) are tied for second at 20-under 196 at the PGA West Stadium Course in La Quinta, Califronia. James Driscoll (66) is in sole possession of fourth at 19-under, with Bill Haas (67) and Justin Leonard (65) a stroke further back.
SOCCER
Juve stay top with Samp win
Arturo Vidal’s double helped Juventus to their 12th straight league win with a 4-2 triumph over UC Sampdoria on Saturday and saw the Italian champions restore an eight-point lead at the top of Serie A. Antonio Conte’s side moved to 55 points from 20 games after taking the spoils from an entertaining match. AS Roma briefly moved within five points of Juve after cruising past lowly AS Livorno 3-0 earlier in the day. Meanwhile, former Netherlands midfielder Clarence Seedorf was to return to the San Siro yesterday to take charge of old club AC Milan as they host Hellas Verona.
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