WORLD CUP
Pro-Kosovo revelry probed
FIFA opened disciplinary proceedings against Swiss players Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri on Saturday over their pro-Kosovo goal celebrations during the match against Serbia. FIFA is also probing Serbian national team manager Mladen Krstajic for alleged statements made after Friday’s game. Disciplinary proceedings have also been opened against the Serbian FA for crowd disturbances and the display of political and offensive messages by Serbian fans, world soccer’s governing body said in a statement.
WORLD CUP
Uruguay’s Gimenez sidelined
Uruguay defender Jose Maria Gimenez is out of his country’s World Cup game against hosts Russia, which will determine who will top Group A, because of a thigh injury, officials said on Saturday. The Atletico Madrid center-half “will not be taken into account for the match ... against Russia,” the Uruguayan Football Association said in a statement. The match takes place today in Samara. Uruguay and Russia have both won their first two matches, although the hosts have a far more impressive goal difference.
BASEBALL
Kemp grand slam routs Mets
Matt Kemp’s pinch-hit grand slam blew the game open and capped a five-run eighth inning on Saturday night for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who routed the New York Mets 8-3 at Citi Field. Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, who was on the disabled list all month with a back injury, started for Los Angeles and allowed two runs on five hits and one walk while striking out four over three innings. Mets ace Jacob deGrom (5-3) took the loss after allowing three runs on five hits and three walks while striking out six over six innings. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the three-game series and eight of their last 11. The Mets have lost five straight.
US OPEN
Seedings to note pregnancies
The US Open will start considering pregnancy situations when making seedings so that players are not penalized for starting families, US Tennis Association president Katrina Adams said in a New York Times report on Saturday. The change comes after criticism of French Open officials for how they handled the case of former world No. 1 Serena Williams in her Grand Slam return last month after giving birth to a daughter in September last year. “We’re a Grand Slam and we have the right and the opportunity to seed the players according to what we feel is justified,” Adams added.
NASCAR
Haley races to first truck win
Justin Haley on Saturday night won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway Motorsports Park for his first career victory, pulling away on a wild last restart. “I’ve been dreaming about this day since I was a little kid,” Haley said. The 19-year-old Haley, from Winamac, Indiana, took the lead when Kyle Busch Motorsports teammates Noah Gragson and Todd Gilliland made contact racing for the lead on a restart with seven laps to go. Haley then held off GMS Racing teammate Johnny Sauter, a four-time winner this season, on the final restart with two laps left. “I’m about to cry,” Haley said. “I raced my heart out. That’s what I’ve worked for my whole life.”
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