CRICKET
Bangladesh coach quits
Shane Jurgensen has quit as Bangladesh head coach after a string of poor performances by the squad sparked severe criticism from the Bangladesh Cricket Board. Jurgensen sent a letter from his home in Australia to the board saying that he would leave his post after the completion of Bangladesh’s limited-overs series against India, scheduled to be held in June. The board on Monday confirmed it received Jurgensen’s resignation, but is yet to formally accept it because board president Nazmul Hasan is away in Singapore. Jurgensen steered Bangladesh to a one-day-international series win against New Zealand, before losing a series to Sri Lanka and conducting miserable Asia Cup and ICC World Twenty20 Wolrd Cup campaigns. Following the World Twenty20, Hassan said he was considering radical changes in the team and its support staff. Bangladeshi media at the time reported that a change in the coaching position was imminent and that the new coach would likely need to have some batting pedigree.
ICE HOCKEY
Top defensemen nominated
Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins, Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks and Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators have been named as finalists for the James Norris Memorial Trophy, given to the NHL’s top defenseman, the league said on Monday. Chara, a six-time finalist who won the award in the 2008-2009 season, averaged a team-high 24 minutes, 39 seconds of ice time per game, nearly three minutes more than the next-closest player. Keith, a two-time finalist who captured the award for the 2009-2010 campaign, led all defensemen with 55 assists and ranked second among blueliners with 61 points, while playing a team-high average of 24 minutes, 38 seconds per game. Weber, a two-time runner-up for the trophy, ranked first among defensemen with 23 goals.
TENNIS
Busta advances in Portugal
Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain ousted eighth-seeded Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 6-1, 7-6 (3) on Monday to reach the second round of the Portugal Open. Carreno Busta broke his opponent five times in the match, but also lost his serve three times in the second set before prevailing in the tiebreaker. Both players struggled with their first serve, as Carreno Busta landed just 51 percent of his to 47 percent for Kukushkin. In the only other match on Monday in Oeiras, Portugal, Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan defeated Adrian Mannarino of France 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.
TENNIS
Delbonis beats Davydenko
Federico Delbonis of Argentina beat two-time champion Nikolay Davydenko 6-2, 7-6 (4) on Monday to reach the second round of the BMW Open. The 44th-ranked Delbonis never faced a break point and broke the Russian twice in the first set to take control of the match. German wild-card entry Dustin Brown also advanced by ousting big-serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) in a match that saw no breaks of serve and only one break point for each player. Brown will play top-seeded Fabio Fognini of Italy in the second round of the tournament in Munich, Germany. In Monday’s other matches, Alejandro Falla of Colombia defeated Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-2, 6-1, and Marinko Matosevic of Australia advanced when Michal Przysiezny of Poland retired while leading 6-2, 5-6.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with