BASKETBALL
NBA tattoo lawsuit to proceed
A federal judge on Friday rejected a request by the maker of the popular NBA 2K video game series to dismiss a lawsuit over its depiction in the game of tattoos belonging to LeBron James and other National Basketball Association stars. US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan said she needed a better understanding of how Take-Two Interactive Software Inc’s flagship game is “generally played,” before deciding whether its “realistic” depiction of tattoos licensed by Solid Oak Sketches LLC amounted to fair use. Solid Oak is seeking damages for the depiction of tattoos belonging to James, Eric Bledsoe and Kenyon Martin, for which it owns copyright registrations. Swain said that before deciding whether Take-Two committed copyright infringement, she wanted to know how the “average lay observer” would see the tattoos while playing the game, and how prominent the tattoos actually were.
SOCCER
Wilkins ‘fights for life’
Former England captain and Chelsea, Manchester United and AC Milan midfielder Ray Wilkins was fighting for his life on Friday following a heart attack, with his wife telling British media: “It’s very, very bad.” Wilkins, 61, is understood to have fallen and hit his head after his heart stopped. He has been placed in an induced coma at a London hospital. “He is not in a good state at all, I’m afraid. He’s critically ill,” Wilkins’ wife Jackie told The Mirror newspaper. Wilkins played 84 times for England, captaining his country 10 times between 1976 and 1986. His playing career also took him to Paris Saint-Germain, Glasgow Rangers and Queen’s Park Rangers. “The thoughts of everybody at Chelsea Football Club are with Ray Wilkins and his family tonight. Keep fighting Ray, you have our love and support,” a statement on the Chelsea Twitter feed said.
GOLF
Park eagles to lead ANA
Park Sung-hyun eagled the par-four 15th hole en route to an “awesome” eight-under-par 64 and a share of the second-round clubhouse lead at the ANA Inspiration in Rancho Mirage, California on Friday. South Korean Park, the US Women’s Open champion, joined Swede Pernilla Lindberg at 12-under 132 on another morning of ideal conditions at Mission Hills. Lindberg, the first round leader, followed her opening 65 with a bogey-free 67. The leading duo had a substantial five-shot advantage over Englishwomen Jodi Ewart Shadoff (67) and Charley Hull (68) and American Amy Olson (68) with half the field back in the clubhouse. Self-coached Park said she had not even been aware of her score. “I just was so focused on my game today,” she told reporters.
BASEBALL
MLB players 29% foreign
Major League Baseball started the season with its most players born in Puerto Rico since 2011. Nineteen players on opening-day rosters were born in the US territory, an increase of three from last year, the commissioner’s office said on Friday. The overall percentage of players born outside the 50 states was 29 percent, down from last year’s record 29.8 percent figure. The Dominican Republic led with 84, down from 93 last year. Venezuela was next with 74, followed by Puerto Rico, Cuba (17), Mexico (11), Japan (eight), Canada and South Korea (six each), and Colombia and Curacao (five apiece). Australia, Brazil, Nicaragua and Panama had three apiece. Taiwan, Aruba, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, South Africa, and the US Virgin Islands each had one.
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