■ Soccer
Still no pay for Leeds players
Players at fallen English giants Leeds United have not been paid for nearly six weeks as a result of the ongoing saga surrounding the club's ownership, the players' trade union said. Ken Bates placed Leeds in administration on May 4 with debts of ?35 million (US$71.8 million) and won the race to buy back the club on July 11 and regain control at London's Elland Road. Most of the League One club's players agreed to a wage deferral in May after Leeds went into administration, but it was hoped Bates' buyback of the club would ensure no further problems. "It's an absolute mess and it needs to be resolved urgently because the players are reaching the end of their tethers," Professional Footballers Association (PFA) representative Mick McGuire said.
■ Baseball
NY explosion shocks Matsui
New York's steam pipe explosion has shocked Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui, who lives nearby and has been urged to evacuate, reports said yesterday. The Japanese star's apartment is just 700m from the accident site in midtown Manhattan and authorities have issued a voluntary evacuation order due to asbestos, Japanese sports dailies reported. Japanese reporters at Yankee Stadium were apparently the first to break the news of the order to "Godzilla" on Thursday. "An evacuation? Really?" Matsui asked reporters, as quoted by the Sports Hochi daily. The Sports Nippon said Matsui looked stunned and repeated "really?" three times.
■ Soccer
MLS All-Stars top Celtic 2-0
Colombians Juan Pablo Angel and Juan Toja each scored goals in Commerce City, Colorado, on Thursday to lift the MLS All-Stars to a 2-0 victory over Scottish powerhouse Celtic. While David Beckham is the headliner, players like Angel and Toja, who came to the US this season to play Major League Soccer, could be every bit as important to the future of the sport in the US. A crowd of 18,661 saw the MLS team put on a pretty good show against Celtic, which is still working its way into form but is, nevertheless, the two-time defending champs of the Scottish Premier League.
■ Tennis
Henin out of San Diego WTA
World No. 1 Justine Henin of Belgium withdrew from the WTA hardcourt tournament starting in San Diego, California, on Monday with a right wrist injury, organizers said on Thursday. Henin, beaten in the semi-finals at Wimbledon in her last match, said on her Internet site that she would resume training in Monaco next week but wouldn't pick up a racquet until Aug. 5. She expects to play in a tournament in Toronto from Aug. 13 before the US Open, the final grand slam of the year, in New York from Aug. 27 to Sept. 9.
■ Soccer
Papin might coach China
Former French striker Jean-Pierre Papin has emerged as a top candidate to coach China's national side after the team's disastrous first-round exit from the Asian Cup, press reports said yesterday. Papin will arrive in Beijing this month for talks with the China Football Association, which is expected to fire coach Zhu Guanghu (朱廣滬) after the team's appalling result in Kuala Lumpur, the leading Titan Sports Weekly said. Meanwhile Zhu has refused to resign following China's 3-0 loss to Uzbekistan on Wednesday -- its first failure to reach the second round of an Asian Cup in 27 years.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
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