TENNIS
Serena to miss WTA Finals
Serena Williams has withdrawn from the WTA Finals in Singapore next week citing a persistent shoulder injury, the world No. 2 said yesterday. The 22-time Grand Slam singles champion has played only eight tournaments this year and lost her top ranking to German Angelique Kerber. “It’s been a really tough year for me, dealing with these shoulder injuries. My doctor insists that I stay home and heal it. I only have wonderful memories of playing in Singapore and I will really miss my fans,” the 35-year-old said in a video on the WTA Web site.
TENNIS
Cibulkova wins in Austria
Dominika Cibulkova won her third WTA Tour title of the season and her seventh overall by beating Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland 6-3, 7-5 in the Generali Ladies final in Linz, Austria, on Sunday. The triumph earned the Slovakian world No. 10 a berth at the season-ending WTA Finals for the first time. Cibulkova also won in Katowice, Poland, in April and Eastbourne, England, in June. Second seed Cibulkova screamed for joy and fell on her back after converting her first match point with a service winner. “It feels so great,” she said. “It’s an incredible year, such a great season.”
GOLF
Steele gains redemption
A year after squandering victory, Brendan Steele gained redemption when he birdied the final three holes to snatch a one-stroke victory at the Safeway Open in northern California on Sunday. Cycling fan Steele, hardly sighted on the leaderboard all week, timed his finishing sprint perfectly with a seven-under 65 at a soggy Silverado Resort in Napa. “Home state [and] now I’m going back to the Masters,” he told Golf Channel. “First one with the short putter, too. I’m really proud of that. Making that transition’s been a little tough. That’s all amazing.”
GOLF
Noren wins his third title
Alexander Noren underlined his status as Europe’s hottest golfer by grabbing a third victory in eight events at the British Masters on Sunday, becoming the first man to win three times on the European Tour this year. The 34-year-old took a three-stroke lead into the final round at The Grove course just outside London and the Swede was never headed as he compiled a closing two-under 69 for an 18-under 266. Noren, who also won the Scottish Open in July and last month’s European Masters in Switzerland, finished two strokes clear of Austrian Bernd Wiesberger (67).
CYCLING
Sagan retains world title
Peter Sagan retained his world road race title in an exciting sprint finish in Doha on Sunday, edging Britain’s Mark Cavendish into second place. Slovakian Sagan said the result was “unbelievable.” “I am still in total shock, I am very, very happy,” the 26-year-old said. He is the first rider to retain the world title since Italy’s Paolo Bettini in Germany in 2007. Belgium’s Tom Boonen finished third, which meant for the first time in the history of the event all three cyclists on the podium were former champions — Cavendish won in 2011 and Boonen in 2005. Sagan said he was fortunate at the finishing line as he was not boxed in by any other riders. “I was very lucky,” he said. “You never know what is going to happen in sprints like this.”
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