TENNIS
Donald Young wins in Nice
US qualifier Donald Young rallied to reach the second round at the Nice Open, beating sixth-seeded Fabio Fognini 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 on Monday. Young served 10 aces, twice as many as Fognini. Fifth-seeded Joao Sousa of Portugal needed three sets to overcome another qualifier, Quentin Halys of France, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Halys had 12 aces, but also had nine double-faults. Eighth-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany advanced when Kyle Edmund of Britain quit after the two split the first two sets. Edmund fell while leading 4-3 in the second and appeared in pain. He finished the set, losing it 7-5, but did not play the third. Another qualifier advanced when Diego Schwartzman of Argentina defeated Fernando Verdasco of Spain 7-6 (7/5), 6-1.
TENNIS
Delbonis defeats Tipsarevic
Sixth-seeded Federico Delbonis of Argentina beat Janko Tipsarevic 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) on the Serbian’s return from an eight-month injury absence at the Geneva Open on Monday. Tipsarevic, a former No. 8, is ranked 686th after not playing consistently injury-free since 2013. Seventh-seeded Steve Johnson of the US beat Mikhail Youzhny of Russia 6-3, 7-5 to score a first clay-court win this season at his fourth attempt. Eighth-seeded American Sam Querrey fell to a 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 loss against clay specialist Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain. Another former top-10 player, Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, won against Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania 7-5, 7-5.
CRICKET
Kohli breaks Gayle record
Red-hot Virat Kohli smashed an unbeaten half-century to break Chris Gayle’s record for the most runs in a single Indian Premier League season. Kohli, captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, has racked up 752 runs in 12 matches so far this year, including three centuries and five 50s. Kohli’s 75-run blitz on Monday kept the Challengers’ play-off hopes alive after they crushed the Kolkata Knight Riders by nine wickets. The India batsman overtook the powerful Gayle, who scored 733 runs in 15 matches in 2012, while Australia’s Mike Hussey tallied the same figure in 17 games in 2013. Kohli, who batted with an injured finger, stitched together a 115-run unbeaten stand with A.B. de Villiers (59). Their partnership came just two days after they recorded the highest partnership (229) in Twenty20 cricket history during the Challengers’ match against the Gujarat Lions.
BOXING
Tyson Fury apologizes
World heavyweight champion Tyson Fury insists he is “in no way a racist or bigot” after apologizing on Monday for comments he made in an hour-long video. Fury caused controversy after remarks in the interview last week, which led to widespread calls for him to be banned from boxing. “I apologize to anyone who may have taken offense at any of my comments,” Fury said in a statement. “I said some things, which may have hurt some people, which as a Christian man is not something I would ever want to do. Though it is not an excuse, sometimes the heightened media scrutiny has caused me to act out in public. I mean no harm or disrespect to anyone and I know more is expected of me as an ambassador of British boxing and I promise in future to hold myself up to the highest possible standard.” Fury has previously been accused of sexism and homophobia and also made controversial remarks about Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill. In his latest outburst, he claimed “Zionist, Jewish people ... own all the banks, all the papers, all the TV stations.”
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