SOCCER
FA Cup dream smashed
Salford City’s FA Cup dream came to a cruel end with a 2-0 extra-time loss to Hartlepool United in their second-round replay on Tuesday. Salford, the non-league side co-owned by former Manchester United greats Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Ryan Giggs, hit the post in normal time through Richie Allen’s deflected shot. However, Scott Fenwick powerfully headed in a Rhys Oates cross in extra-time with a Mikael Mandron volley clinching victory for the League Two side. “I’m absolutely devastated,” Salford manager Anthony Johnson said. “The players could not have put any more in. We’re proud of what the boys have done. We put in an unbelievable performance.” Salford, who play in the Northern Premier League Premier Division and are 52 places below Hartlepool in the league structure, had never gone beyond the third qualifying round before this season.
SOCCER
Chelsea players criticized
Playmaker Cesc Fabregas has criticized the attitude and behavior of he and his teammates in the wake of champions Chelsea’s alarming slide down the Premier League table. The Londoners plunged to their ninth league defeat of the season on Monday, losing 2-1 at leaders Leicester City to slip to fifth from bottom. “We will all have to take our responsibility. If you are a big player, and paid like a big player, you must play like a big player and behave like a big player,” Fabregas told a Facebook question-and-answer session on Tuesday. “I am not saying you can’t have a bad season and bad games. We all have big players and small players, but the attitude must be spot on. We must always be at the top of our games, even when it’s not, and the behavior has to be better than what we are seeing right now from every single Chelsea player.”
TENNIS
Williams eyes Grand Slam
Serena Williams says completing a Grand Slam is a goal she would like to accomplish. For now, her focus is on winning another major tournament, not four in a row. Williams was two victories away from sweeping all four in the same year when she was stunned by Roberta Vinci in the US Open semi-finals in September. Her dominant season earned her Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year honors, and she was feted on Tuesday night at a banquet in Manhattan. Asked if the Grand Slam is a goal next year, Williams said: “It is, obviously; I’ve never done it. We’ll see. I’m not putting any pressure on it.” She said that she has won the French Open “only” three times, so even getting halfway there again is “going to be a little difficult to do.”
CRICKET
West Indies board under fire
Dwayne Bravo has criticized the West Indies Cricket Board over its strained relationship with players and a lack of facilities for the sport in the Caribbean. Bravo, who is to play with the Melbourne Renegades in Australia’s Twenty20 league, said “too much politics is killing our cricket.” “We’ve got the players to be up there with the best in the world, but there’s a lot of things going on,” he said. “Those in charge have to look into themselves. We don’t have proper grounds, proper nets or a proper academy. All these things are a part of our downfall.” Bravo was stripped of the captaincy of the West Indies limited-overs team a year ago and then was left out of the squad that contested the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in February and March. He retired from Test cricket in January.
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