■ GOLF
Cink takes lead in Florida
Stewart Cink claimed the clubhouse lead after three rounds of the rain-disrupted PGA Tour PODS Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida, on Saturday. Cink notched three straight birdies before closing with a bogey to finish with a two-under 69 for a three-round total of five-under 208. Half a dozen golfers were still on the course when play in the tournament was halted by darkness. Among them, second-round leader Brandt Snedeker and Billy Mayfair were at three-under, while Australian Geoff Ogilvy completed a 69 for three-under 210.
■ BADMINTON
Lin reaches final again
China's world champion Lin Dan reached the All-England men's singles final for a fifth year in a row with a comfortable 21-14, 21-14 victory over compatriot Bao Chunlai on Saturday. In the other semi-final, China's Chen Jin, the No.4 seed, scored an upset 21-18, 21-18 win over Malaysia's former world No.1 Lee Chong Wei. In the women's competition Denmark's unseeded Tine Rasmussen won through to the final to face the No 3 seed from China, Lu Lan. Rasmussen, the world No.9, had previously never got beyond the second round in eight previous appearances at an All-England. Lu reached her first final in Birmingham with a straightforward 21-13, 21-14 victory over the Chinese-born German player, Xu Huaiwen.
■ SOCCER
Brawl leaves 80 wounded
A stadium brawl left about 80 people wounded in the Colombian city of Cali late on Saturday, 18 of them with stab wounds, emergency officials said. Clashes broke during the match between America de Cali and Deportivo de Cali spread onto the field and around the Pascual Guerrero stadium. Police fired tear gas as the brawlers lit firecrackers and tried to tear down fencing separating the stands from the field. Eighteen people were stabbed during the melee, said Manuel Infante, spokesman for Cali's Emergency Prevention Committee. They were treated at the stadium and taken to a local hospital. Another 60 suffered bruises and other minor injuries. A young pregnant woman and three police officers were among the wounded, the Red Cross said.
■ TENNIS
Qualifier reaches final
South African qualifier Kevin Anderson defeated American wildcard Robby Ginepri 7-6, 6-4 on Saturday to reach the final of the Las Vegas Open. Anderson will face unseeded American Sam Querrey, who beat fourth-seeded Argentine Guillermo Canas 7-5, 6-2. The 21-year-old Anderson, ranked 175th in the world and bidding to become the first South African to win an ATP final since Wesley Moodie won in Tokyo in October 2005, took the opening set 7-4 on a tiebreak. He was broken only once as he clinched victory in one hour and 28 minutes. The 2.01m Anderson, who won his first ATP match in Monday's opening round, has reached the final without losing a set. "Each match I've felt I could compete and I've played my own game," Anderson told reporters. "I'm not trying to do anything special." Querrey, ranked 66th and looking for his first ATP title, converted five of nine break points to upset the 20th-ranked Canas in one-hour, 39 minutes.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
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