SOCCER
Rotherham beats Leeds 2-1
Darko Milanic is still waiting for his first win as Leeds manager after the troubled Championship club slumped to a 2-1 defeat at Yorkshire rivals Rotherham on Friday. Slovenian Milanic looked on course to secure his maiden victory at the fourth attempt after Mirco Antenucci’s strike put the visitors ahead before halftime at the New York Stadium. However, Rotherham rattled Milanic’s side after the interval and took the derby bragging rights thanks to goals from Alex Revell and substitute Jonson Clarke-Harris in the space of seven minutes. Rotherham’s second league win over Leeds since 1962 leaves the fallen giants in 14th place in the second tier. After such a slow start to his reign, former Maribor and Sturm Graz boss Milanic will be hoping Leeds’ controversial Italian owner Massimo Cellino does not wield the axe again this season following the sacking of David Hockaday after only six games in charge.
TENNIS
Russian official suspended
Russian Tennis Federation president Shamil Tarpischev has been suspended from any involvement with the WTA Tour for a year after referring to Venus and Serena Williams as “the Williams brothers” on a Russian television talk show. WTA Tour chairman and chief executive Stacey Allaster said in a statement on Friday that Tarpischev would also be fined US$25,000, the maximum allowed under WTA rules, and that the tour would also seek his removal as chairman of the Kremlin Cup tournament in Moscow for a year. Allaster said his remarks were “insulting, demeaning and have absolutely no place in our sport” and that he owed the Williams sisters an apology. “Mr Tarpischev’s statements questioning their genders tarnish our great game and two of our champions. His derogatory remarks deserve to be condemned and he will be sanctioned,” Allaster said.
BOXING
Rubio fails to make weight
Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio’s challenge for Gennady Golovkin’s WBA middleweight world title ended on the scale on Friday as he failed to make weight for last night’s sold-out bout. The 12-round fight was to go ahead, but even if he beats Kazakh knock-out artist Golovkin, Rubio will not claim the title. Rubio stripped to the buff on the scale but came in at 161.8 pounds (73.39 kg), 1.8 pounds over the 160-pound middleweight limit. Rubio was given two hours to try to make weight, but never returned to the official scale. “We were trying,” Rubio’s trainer Robert Garcia told ESPN.com. “He did everything he could to make weight, but he got to a point where his body just shut down. No more weight was going to come off.” Unbeaten Golovkin, seeking an 18th straight knock-out, weighed in at 159 pounds. If Golovkin wins, he will keep his WBA title and claim the WBC “interim” middleweight belt left vacant when Rubio failed to make weight. If Golovkin loses, his WBA title will be vacated, Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said.
CRICKET
McCullum plans to testify
New Zealand cricket captain Brendon McCullum says he will testify against former teammate Chris Cairns in a perjury trial in London next year because he feels a duty “to protect the game.” McCullum is to be among as many as 12 leading cricketers who may be called to give evidence when the trial starts in October next year. Cairns won £90,000 (then US$140,000) in damages in 2012 after he sued Indian Premier League founder Lalit Modi over an accusation of match-fixing. He was later charged with one count of perjury in the case.
SOCCER
Singapore shuffles schedule
Proprietors of Singapore’s much-maligned National Stadium have bumped a concert in an attempt to assure concerned organizers that they will have an up-to-standards pitch for next month’s Suzuki Cup. Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou’s Nov. 8 performance has been moved to a week after the conclusion of the Nov. 22 to Dec. 20 Southeast Asian championships amid fears that covering the pitch for the concert would kill the grass. “As we now begin to look forward to the AFF Suzuki Cup next month, we have had to make some difficult decisions to ensure this regional competition has the best chance for success with regards to the quality of the National Stadium pitch,” Sports Hub chief operating officer Oon Jin Teik said in a statement. Tournament organizers, the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF), said they would decide on Wednesday whether or not to move the eight-team tournament, to be co-hosted with Vietnam, or switch venues to Singapore’s much smaller 5,000-seat Jalan Besar stadium on an artificial pitch. The National Stadium surface was criticized this week as Brazil beat Japan 4-0 on Tuesday on a surface the Singapore Football Association deemed far short of international standards.
GOLF
McDowell ousted in London
Graeme McDowell had his “heart ripped out” by Dutchman Joost Luiten on Friday as the title holder was sent crashing out of the Volvo World Match Play Championship at the London Club. Luiten, who finished off the Northern Irishman with three birdies in the last four holes, made it three wins from three round-robin encounters to secure a quarter-final meeting with Spain’s Pablo Larrazabal. World No. 5 Henrik Stenson, the highest-ranked player in the field, also finished top of his group after easing past last year’s runner-up Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand 2 and 1. Top seed Stenson is to face Jonas Blixt in the last eight after his fellow Swede halved a remarkable match with 2006 champion Paul Casey that featured 17 birdies and two eagles. The other two quarter-finals see Frenchman Victor Dubuisson taking on Mikko Ilonen of Finland and Ryder Cup rookie Patrick Reed of the US up against South African George Coetzee.
GOLF
Knox, Putman share lead
Scotland’s Russell Knox and Andrew Putnam of the US, both seeking a first US PGA Tour title, shared the halfway lead on Friday at the Shriners Hospitals Open in Las Vegas. Putnam, making the fourth PGA Tour start of his career, had seven birdies and one bogey in his six-under 65, while Knox had six birdies and two bogeys in his 67. They shared the lead in the second event of the US Tour’s season on 10-under 132 — one shot in front of Americans Andrew Svoboda and Tony Finau. Finau climbed up the leaderboard with a 65, while Svoboda posted a 67. Putnam, who earned his PGA Tour card for this season via the Web.com developmental tour, made the cut on the elite circuit for the first time.
TENNIS
Points-chasers advance
David Ferrer and Andy Murray made the semi-finals of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna on Friday, boosting their chances to qualify for the ATP Finals next month. Ferrer overcame 17 aces in a 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 defeat of Ivo Karlovic and is to face Philipp Kohlschreiber. Murray defeated Jan-Lennard Struff 6-2, 7-5 to set up a semi-final against Viktor Troicki. Ferrer and Murray are ninth and 10th respectively in the race to London and both accepted wild-cards to gain ground on the top eight, who qualify for the season-ending event.
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