SNOOKER
Robertson wins UK title
Australia’s Neil Robertson became the first player to make a maximum 147 break in a UK Snooker Championship final on his way to beating China’s Liang Wenbo 10-5 on Sunday. The left-handed Robertson, 33, made the maximum in the sixth frame as he dominated the final against outsider Liang. Robertson, the 2010 world champion and a former world No. 1, was 5-3 up at the interval in the best-of-19 final. Fellow left-hander Liang, 28, refused to buckle as the next four frames were shared at 7-5 before the greater experience of the Australian told as he wrapped up the next three to take the UK trophy for the second time in three years.
GOLF
Poulter, Westwood selected
Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood have been selected by European captain Darren Clarke as his picks for next month’s EurAsia Cup tournament in Malaysia. The Englishmen are to make their debuts in the team event, being held for a second time after the inaugural edition last year, joining 10 other players automatically selected for Europe last month. “Having played in a total of 14 Ryder Cups, Ian and Lee have proven themselves two of the most fearsome match players in the game and I fully expect them to deliver points for the team on the golf course,” Clarke said in a statement yesterday. Team Asia, captained by India’s Jeev Milkha Singh, is to be named on Tuesday next week after the Thailand Golf Championship.
MOTOR RACING
Ecclestone slams Mercedes
Mercedes’ world championship stranglehold has made Formula One “boring” and caused spectators to turn their backs on the sport, commercial ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone told Welt am Sonntag on Sunday. “The domination of Mercedes is so strong that a good number of people watch the start of a race and then switch off their televisions because Mercedes have made races boring,” Ecclestone said. “It is not good for the sport. Fans do not want to know, before the start of a Grand Prix, who is going to win. It is a problem for us at the moment and one that we must resolve.” Mercedes have swept to the last two F1 world titles, with Lewis Hamilton taking back-to-back drivers’ crowns. That dominance has led Ecclestone, the head of Formula One Management, to say he is worried for the sport’s future. Ecclestone believes that teams and manufacturers need to co-operate more to make the sport more affordable and attractive, and agree on a package of reform measures. “For decades, we have tried to limit financial operations to guarantee more competitiveness,” added Ecclestone, who believes more powerful and cheaper engines are key to achieving a level playing field.
SOCCER
US cancel match over pitch
The US women’s soccer team called off its Women’s World Cup “Victory Tour” match against Trinidad and Tobago in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Sunday, declaring the artificial pitch unsuitable for an international match. After testing the playing surface on Saturday in their final workout and seeking options to get the field into playable condition, the US Soccer Federation made the final decision to cancel the match. “We extend our sincere apologies to those fans who were scheduled to attend,” US Soccer spokesman Neil Buethe said. “Player safety is our ... priority at all times and after a thorough inspection throughout the day, we determined it was in the best interest for both teams to not play the match.”
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