TENNIS
Matches tagged for fixing
Matches at Wimbledon and the French Open triggered alerts for potential match-fixing in the second quarter of the year, the Tennis Integrity Unit said on Wednesday. One match at Roland Garros and three at Wimbledon, two of them in the qualifying tournament and one in the main draw, would be assessed and reviewed, it said in a statement. Alerts are raised in response to unusual betting patterns, which are not in themselves evidence of match-fixing and can be due to a number of other factors, including conditions and player fitness.
SOCCER
Arsenal fends off sickness
Arsenal were ravaged by food poisoning in Shanghai that ruled several key players out of their pre-season friendly with Bayern Munich on Wednesday, manager Arsene Wenger said. The sickness that had swept the team, coupled with 36°C heat in China and long flights, made for far-from-ideal preparations for another taxing campaign. The extreme conditions in Shanghai were “a shock” after flying in from wintry Australia, Wenger said. “[Aaron] Ramsey finished the game [feeling] bad and [Theo] Walcott, [Sead] Kolasinac, [Per] Mertesacker, [Oliver] Giroud, they all had a little food poisoning,” he said.
SOCCER
Game 39 is dead: EPL head
England’s top clubs remain keen to play competitive matches abroad, but the idea of putting on a dedicated additional round of fixtures outside the country — dubbed “Game 39” — is dead, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said yesterday. “The clubs would like to do it, but we’re also realistic that until the fan reaction or the political reaction or the general media reaction is more warm toward it, it’s not going to happen,” Scudamore told reporters in Hong Kong. The success of the Premier League Asia Trophy preseason tournament played a key role in stimulating the debate over international round of fixtures. Original plans had been to play half of the matches in this year’s version in China, but logistical issues meant Hong Kong was called upon to host the entire event for the fourth time. Despite missing out on a return to China, Scudamore is taking considerable interest in what is going on in Chinese soccer. “I think it’s going to be interesting to see how Chinese football develops. Most importantly, they’re investing hugely in grassroots, hugely in infrastructure, in coaching. You can’t just come along and implement something at the very top end because it’s unsustainable really just to do that,” he said.
FOOTBALL
Kaepernick gets hair advice
Michael Vick has some advice for Colin Kaepernick if he wants another shot in the NFL: Get a haircut. During an appearance on Monday on Fox Sports 1’s Speak for Yourself, Vick said the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback needs to lose his Afro or cornrows for a “clean-cut” style to get a job. The former Falcons and Eagles quarterback said he was speaking from personal experience. Kaepernick parted ways with the 49ers in March and has not been signed by another team. His decision to kneel during the national anthem last season to protest police shootings of black people became a topic of national conversation.
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