GOLF
Donald leads RBC Heritage
Luke Donald put himself in the best position to make up for so many near-misses at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, by shooting a 66 on Saturday to take a two-stroke lead into the final round. Donald had an eagle and six birdies at Harbour Town Golf Links, where he has regularly challenged for the title, but never got his hands on the silverware. The Englishman fell in a playoff to Brandt Snedeker in 2011, and has four top-three finishes in five years. At 11-under 205 and with a two-shot lead over John Huh, he is poised to finally win. ““If I can go out as relaxed and confident as I was today tomorrow, if I can control the trajectory [of shots] as well as I did today, then hopefully I’ll be sitting here as the winner,” he said. Once the world’s top-ranked golfer, Donald has changed coaches, but his transition back to the top has not come as quickly as planned. The last of his five PGA Tour wins came in 2012, his best showing this year was a tie for fourth at the Valspar Championship last month and he did not make the cut at the Masters after shooting 79-70. “I was the former world No. 1 and was there for a long time and obviously slipped down,” said Donald, currently 29th. “But I haven’t felt my game had gotten that much worse.” His round got started with a 25-footer for eagle on the par-five second hole. Donald then tied leader Nicholas Thompson with a birdie on the 14th before stretching his lead with a final one by rolling in a 15-foot putt on the par-three 17th.
GOLF
Michelle Wie wins LOTTE
Michelle Wie won the LPGA Lotte Championship in Kapolei, Hawaii on Saturday, coming from four strokes behind at the start of the round and shooting a five-under 67 as her rivals fell away. Wie finished at 14-under 274 to take her third career victory on the LPGA Tour and first since 2010; doing so in Hawaii, where she grew up. “Every time I felt nervous out there, I was looking around, I felt there was no place I’d rather be,” Wie said. Third-round leader Angela Stanford had her worst day of the tournament, shooting a 73 that left her two shots behind Wie. Top-ranked Inbee Park finished third with an 11-under 277. Wie showed she was getting back near her best when she finished as runner-up two weeks’ ago in the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Taiwan’s Yani Tseng shot a three-under 69 to finish at one-over 289 for a share of 32nd.
BOXING
Quigg downs Munyai
Britain’s Scott Quigg retained his WBA super-bantamweight title with a second-round stoppage of South Africa’s Tshifiwa Munyai in Manchester on Saturday. Fighting in front of what was effect a “home town” crowd, the 25-year-old from nearby Bury dropped Munyai to the canvas in the first round and in the second referee Howard Foster stopped the contest when the challenger was again knocked down. Victory saw Quigg, who extended his unbeaten professional record to 30 fights, closer to a domestic showdown with another undefeated boxer in Belfast’s Carl Frampton. “I wanted to make a statement,” Quigg told Sky Sports after making short work of Munyai. “I said I wanted to show the best of Scott Quigg and that’s what I had to do and no one’s ever done that to Munyai. I’ve gone in there and demolished him. It was a calculated start — but we nailed it down beforehand and did what we had to.”
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