TENNIS
Team World rallies
Kevin Anderson took down Novak Djokovic for a second straight night as Team World rallied to win the final two matches and reel Team Europe’s lead back to 7-5 after the second day of the Laver Cup in Chicago on Saturday. The South African led the charge by blasting 17 aces past the Serbian world No. 3 in a 7-6 (7/5), 5-7, 10-6 victory that shifted the momentum after the World side had lost the opening two matches of the day to fall 7-1 behind. “We’ve had some really close matches haven’t gone our way and I really wanted to put us back in there,” Anderson told reporters. “It’s not easy playing one of the best players of all time, but what an amazing atmosphere. I felt I played a great match — beating Novak on any stage is great and here in Chicago makes it extra special.”
RUGBY LEAGUE
Roosters reach final
The Sydney Roosters beat South Sydney 12-4 to advance to their second National Rugby League grand final in five years. The Roostersface the Melbourne Storm, who kept alive their chance of defending their title with a 22-6 win over Cronulla on Friday. Veteran Billy Slater, who scored two first-half tries for the Storm, might not be available for the grand final after he was charged with an illegal shoulder hit on Cronulla’s Sosaia Feki. It means Slater, who plans to retire after the grand final, would miss one match even with an early guilty plea. Storm management say they are confident they will beat the charge at a disciplinary hearing this week.
BOXING
Confident Joshua wins
World heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua is still eyeing a showdown with Deontay Wilder, but said he would fight anyone who comes his way after a technical knockout victory over Alexander Povetkin on Saturday. The 28-year-old Briton, who holds the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO belts, has been in talks about a fight with WBC title holder Wilder, which would give him a shot at becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. However, negotiations broke down and before Joshua’s bout on Saturday, the American announced a fight with Britain’s Tyson Fury in the US on Dec. 1. With Joshua locked in to stage another fight at London’s Wembley Stadium on April 13 next year, Wilder’s December bout casts doubt on who might provide the opposition. Joshua, full of confidence after his devastating seventh round stoppage of the fierce-hitting veteran Russian which took him to 22 fights unbeaten, said Wilder was still his preferred choice. “Yes [want to face Wilder], we’ve been negotiating with their team since the [Carlos] Takam fight ... but if Wilder’s not serious, there’s other people out there,” he said.
PARA GAMES
Koreas to share flag
South Korea and North Korea have agreed to march under a neutral Korean Peninsula flag and form unified teams for some sports at the upcoming Asian Para Games. “This is the first time the two countries have paraded together and competed together at a para-sport event,” Asian Paralympic Committee chairman Majid Rashed said in a statement yesterday. About 100 athletes from South Korea and 20 from North Korea are to compete at the multi-sport event in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, from Oct. 6 to Oct. 13.
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