TENNIS
Cilic repeats Kremlin win
Marin Cilic on Sunday retained his title at the Kremlin Cup, beating Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-4 in a repeat of last year’s final. Even the score was the same. The big-hitting Croatian came under pressure in the early stages, but soon took control, breaking Bautista Agut’s serve at 3-3 before closing out the first set. Cilic went a break up at 2-2 in the second before saving two break points in the next game to hold his advantage. “This tournament is becoming more and more special for me,” Cilic said. “Coming back for a second year in a row and to win it again, it gives me huge, huge satisfaction and huge pleasure.” Cilic is now 14-9 in tour finals, while Bautista Agut drops to a 2-3 record.
TENNIS
Doi wins maiden WTA title
Misaki Doi on Sunday claimed her first WTA title with a 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 6-0 win over Mona Barthel in the Luxembourg Open final. The 92nd-ranked Japanese player saved all five break points she faced to deny the big-hitting Barthel a fourth career title. The left-handed Doi, who upset former top-ranked player Jelena Jankovic in the quarter-finals, arrived in Luxembourg on a four-match losing run. She was on the verge of elimination in her opening match, but rallied from a break down twice in the third set to get past fourth-seeded Andrea Petkovic. Against Barthel, she found herself trailing 0-40 in the first game of the decider, but recovered to hold her serve. “The key point was that first game [in the third set]. It was 0-40, but I tried to focus on every single point and built confidence from there,” Doi said.
BASKETBALL
Flip Saunders dies aged 60
Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations and head coach Flip Saunders has died at the age of 60 after a battle with cancer, the NBA team said on Sunday. “It is with extreme sadness that the Minnesota Timberwolves today learned that Phil ‘Flip’ Saunders, who served as the team’s president of basketball operations and head coach, in addition to being a minority owner of the team, passed away today at age 60,” the team said in a statement. Saunders, a veteran of 17 NBA seasons who posted a career record of 654-592, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, in June. In August, when the team announced his health issues, the long-time coach said that doctors called his condition a “very treatable and curable form of cancer.” He took a leave of absence from the NBA team last month after complications arose following chemotherapy treatments.
SOCCER
Aston Villa fire Sherwood
Aston Villa on Sunday fired manager Tim Sherwood after eight months in charge of the Premier League club. Villa lost 2-1 at home to Swansea City on Saturday, a sixth straight defeat in the league, not having won since the opening day of the season in August against AFC Bournemouth. The club, owned by US entrepreneur Randy Lerner, is in the Premier League relegation zone with only four points from 10 matches. Sherwood replaced Paul Lambert as manager in February when the club dropped into the relegation zone. However, he led Villa to safety with a finish of 17th last season and also guided the team into the final of the FA Cup, before losing 4-0 to Arsenal at Wembley in May. Kevin MacDonald, who has been coaching the under-21 squad, was placed in temporary charge.
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