GOLF
Dredge leads Russian Open
Bradley Dredge shot a five-under 66 on Friday to lead the Russian Open by one stroke at the halfway stage. The Welshman started the day tied for third, but had a bogey-free second round for a 10-under 132 overall after teeing off on a damp morning at the Skolkovo Golf Club outside Moscow. The 42-year-old Dredge is chasing his first tour win since the 2006 European Masters. England’s Lee Slattery is second after shooting 67, including five birdies on the back nine. Daniel Gaunt of Australia, who had a share of the lead after the first round, shot 69 to drop to third at eight-under. The other leader after the first round, Scotland’s Scott Jamieson, is tied for seventh after a par-71 second round, including a double bogey on the ninth. Last year’s winner, David Horsey of England, is tied for 11th on five-under. Former top-ranked tennis player Yevgeny Kafelnikov missed the cut, tied for 127th on 12-over. However, the 41-year-old Russian’s performance this week easily beat previous efforts at the Russian Open, where he has been as much as 40-over after two rounds. Belgian amputee Ced Lescut, who plays with a prosthetic right leg following a motorcycle accident, placed last in his European Tour debut on 38-over, but finished with a birdie.
BOXING
Welter to watch Mayweather
Jen Welter, who blazed a trail for women as a coaching intern with the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, said on Friday that she has accepted Floyd Mayweather Jr’s invitation to his fight against Andre Berto. Unbeaten Mayweather is looking to take his record to 49-0 on Saturday in Las Vegas, Nevada, in what he said would be his last fight. However, Welter’s acceptance of the invite drew some criticism because of Mayweather’s history of domestic violence. Welter, a former rugby and professional gridiron player who owns graduate degrees in psychology, became the first woman to hold a coaching position of any kind in the NFL when the Cardinals hired her to work with inside linebackers during training camp and the pre-season. As her internship was winding down, Welter said in an interview with Yahoo’s Katie Couric that having female coaches in the NFL could help address a problem of domestic violence by NFL players.
SOCCER
Hodgson remarks ‘too heavy’
The coach of European minnows San Marino hit out at England manager Roy Hodgson on Friday after he joked that his nation’s cricketers were good enough to play against them. After watching England’s cricketers play soccer prior to the fifth Ashes Test match against Australia, Hodgson said that there “might be a place or two available” in his team to play San Marino. San Marino coach Pierangelo Manzarini said via an interpreter: “I know Roy Hodgson very well. He is a very good person, very well educated, but when you speak to the media, you have to pay attention, because although we are much smaller than England, we deserve respect like every country. I think he was too heavy with what he said.”
SOCCER
FFA hopeful over qualifier
Football Federation Australia (FFA) yesterday said it is hopeful that Tuesday’s FIFA World Cup qualifier against Tajikistan in the capital, Dushanbe, would go ahead, despite unrest in the city over the past several days. Armed groups led by a disaffected deputy defense minister mounted attacks on Friday in and near Dushanbe that left at least 17 dead, authorities said. It is not yet clear what lay behind the attacks.
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