BASEBALL
Pedro Guerrero hospitalized
Former Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Pedro Guerrero has been hospitalized in the Dominican Republic with bleeding on the brain, but a friend says the 1981 World Series co-MVP appears to be in good spirits and is speaking with people in the hospital. Andres Vanerhorst, who visited Guerrero in hospital in Santo Domingo, spoke with reporters on Monday. The 58-year-old Guerrero was in the intensive care unit and is being treated by a neurosurgeon while undergoing further testing. He was hospitalized a day earlier, and tests detected the cranial bleeding. Guerrero spent 15 years in the major leagues with the Dodgers and St Louis Cardinals. He was MVP, along with Ron Cey and Steve Yeager, in Los Angeles’ World Series victory over the New York Yankees in 1981. A five-time All-Star, Guerrero had a .300 career batting average with 215 home runs and 898 RBIs.
SOCCER
Heart attack player wins suit
A former Tottenham player who suffered catastrophic brain damage when he had a cardiac arrest while representing the club’s youth team won his multimillion-pound High Court damages action on Monday. Radwan Hamed, now 26, had signed on as a professional with Tottenham just three days before his collapse, aged 17, during a youth team game in Belgium in August 2006. Hamed’s father, Raymon, argued his son’s injuries resulted from the negligence of physician Peter Mills, who screened Radwan, and of the club — through Charlotte Cowie and Mark Curtin, specialist sports physicians they employed. Ruling that the club was 70 percent liable and Mills 30 percent, and that compensation should now be assessed, the judge said that Cowie, who was head of the medical services department, made a serious error of judgement when she concluded that the teenager bore no risk of an adverse cardiac event. Damages, which could reach £7 million (US$10 million) according to the BBC, are to be decided next week. “The club wholeheartedly regrets that a former employee, as adjudged, was remiss in their duties to Radwan,” a Tottenham spokesman said. “This judgement will hopefully now secure the best possible treatment and care for him.”
ICE HOCKEY
Dmitry Kulikov suspended
The NHL has suspended Russian defenseman Dmitry Kulikov four games for clipping Dallas Stars forward Tyler Seguin. The incident occurred at 13:05 of the third period of the Stars’ 2-0 win over the Florida Panthers on Friday. Kulikov went low and hit Seguin on his right knee just after the Dallas forward entered the offensive zone. Kulikov was assessed a major penalty for clipping and a game misconduct. The Stars announced that the team’s leading scorer will miss between three and six weeks with a right knee injury. Kulikov will forfeit more than US$93,000 in salary.
SOCCER
Russia gets FIFA thumbs up
FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke on Monday expressed his satisfaction with Russia’s preparations for hosting the 2018 World Cup. “We’re working very well together,” Valcke told a news conference following his meeting with the 2018 World Cup organising committee management board in a Saint Petersburg suburb. “We’re on track for all the preparations, not only for the 2018 World Cup, but also for the 2017 Confederations Cup, which is a very important tournament. “For all of us the next milestone is the [World Cup qualification] draw in this palace [Konstantinovsky], which will host an amazing event with 1,500 people participating,” Valcke added.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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