BASEBALL
Europe to face Japan
A first-ever European All-Star team is to face top-ranked Japan in a two-game series in Tokyo next month. The World Baseball and Softball Confederation said the series will be played on March 10 and 11 at the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome. Confederation president Riccardo Fraccari said: “This is an unprecedented and historic event that signifies baseball’s expansion into a totally new competition format.” Steve Janssen, manager of European champions the Netherlands, is to be the head coach of Europe’s team. The series precedes the confederation’s new Premier 12 tournament in Taiwan and Japan in November, which is to feature the world’s top 12 teams.
SOCCER
Extortion suspect arrested
The leader of a criminal gang who allegedly threatened retired Colombian soccer star Faustino “Tino” Asprilla in a bid to extort money from him was captured on Friday, police in Bogota said. Authorities said the suspect, Oscar Dario “Porron” Restrepo, was the head of an extortion and drug racket operating in western Colombia and was “responsible for the death threats against the soccer idol. Two bodyguards were arrested along with Restrepo. Asprilla, 45, a striker who played in the 1994 and 1998 World Cups, fled his home city of Tulua in western Colombia in December last year after receiving death threats. Masked men reportedly entered his home demanding money and saying they would kill him and his family if he did not pay up. Last week police said they had captured the man who made the threats, whom they named as Andres Felipe Marin — allegedly a member of Restrepo’s gang.
CRICKET
Morgan slams bat plan
England skipper Eoin Morgan has slammed as “ridiculous” plans to restrict the size of cricket bats to try and stem the flow of runs in the one-day game. International Cricket Council chief executive David Richardson said last week the global governing body would consider restricting the depth of bats, saying a larger “sweet spot” was making run-scoring easier. England batsman Morgan could not have been clearer in his opposition and posited the view that recent rule changes had, if anything, shifted the balance toward the bowling team. “I think it’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous,” Morgan told a pre-World Cup news conference in Sydney yesterday. “The fact that you can concentrate on the bat size, where the rule changes have been made so that you bowl with two new balls. The ball is never any older than 25 overs and you have an extra man in the circle. That’s a point in itself. I’ve not come across a bat yet where I’ve said ‘this is ridiculous.’”
OLYMPICS
Rio Games planner resigns
An army general who has headed the public body that coordinates planning for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro resigned on Friday. In a brief statement issued late in the day, the office of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said General Fernando Azevedo e Silva had stepped down. The statement gave no details. In an announcement last month, Azevedo e Silva’s Olympic Public Authority said public and private spending on the Games had reached almost 38 billion Brazilian reais (US$14 billon). The figure was in line with previous estimates. He took over late in 2013 and worked on coordinating Olympic spending with national, state and local governments. He worked separately from the local organizing committee and its budgeting.
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