■ TENNIS
Tests reveal Nadal tendinitis
Rafael Nadal has tendinitis in his right knee and could be in doubt for Spain’s Davis Cup final against Argentina. Medical tests on Tuesday confirmed the tendinitis, and Spain team doctor Angel Ruiz-Cotorro said the top-ranked player would undergo treatment through Saturday. Nadal will have further tests on Monday to assess the injury. Spain plays Argentina in the final at Mar del Plata from Nov. 21-23. On Monday, Nadal pulled out of the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai citing fatigue after a long season in which he’s played in 111 matches. Nadal, winner of a fourth straight French Open title and first Wimbledon championship this year, withdrew from the Paris Masters on Friday with a knee problem after losing the first set of his quarter-final match against Nikolai Davydenko.
■ TENNIS
Becker splits from fiancee
Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker has separated from his fiancee of three months, according to the online edition of Bild newspaper. Becker, 40, and Sandy Meyer-Woelden, 24, got engaged in August. She is the daughter of Becker’s former manager Axel Meyer-Woelden, who died in 1997. Becker divorced Barbara Becker, with whom he has two children, seven years ago. He also has a daughter with London-based model Angela Ermakova.
■ SOCCER
FA charges Roy Keane
Sunderland manager Roy Keane was charged on Tuesday with improper conduct by the Football Association (FA) after he was sent to the stands at half-time during his team’s 5-0 defeat away to Chelsea last weekend. Former Manchester United midfielder Keane was told to leave the dugout by referee Martin Atkinson, having questioned decisions the official had made in the players’ tunnel during the break at Stamford Bridge. “Sunderland manager Roy Keane has been charged with improper conduct,” an FA statement said. “The charge relates to his conduct towards referee Martin Atkinson in the tunnel at half-time of Sunderland’s match against Chelsea on Saturday, 1 November. Keane has until 19 November to respond to the charge.” If found guilty, Keane, who had a reputation as a fiery player for both United and the Republic of Ireland, could face a touchline ban. Keane, speaking after the Chelsea match, said: “I didn’t swear at him [Atkinson] or anything. All you want when you play one of the big boys is a bit of fairness, and I don’t think we got that today [Saturday].”
■ CRICKET
Gambhir appeal rejected
Indian opener Gautam Gambhir will miss the fourth and final Test against Australia starting today after his appeal against a one-match ban was rejected. The left-hander was suspended by match referee Chris Broad for “physical contact” with Australian all-rounder Shane Watson while taking a run on the opening day of the third Test in Delhi. “The Appeals Commissioner has rejected the appeal and upheld the penalty of one-Test ban imposed by the match referee,” Indian cricket board secretary N. Srinivasan said in a statement on Tuesday. He also said that the board had refused to accept the decision and had sent its objection to the International Cricket Council. Murali Vijay was named as Gambhir’s replacement. Gambhir appeared to elbow Watson after the all-rounder seemed to have said something to the batsman as he took a second run during the first innings in Delhi.
■ NASCAR
Woman hit by stray bullet
A stray bullet that injured a NASCAR fan in her motor home at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, may have been from a rifle of a target shooter, police said on Tuesday. A 49-year-old man contacted police after being told of news reports that a woman was hit in the arm on Sunday morning by a bullet piercing through the roof of her recreational vehicle camped at the speedway for the Dickies 500, according to Fort Worth police. The man told detectives on Tuesday that he fired five or six rounds from a .50 caliber Vulcan single-shot rifle near a rifle range about 8km from the speedway from about 10am to 11am, police said.
■ ATHLETICS
Five named to hall of fame
Bill Carr, the 400m champion at the 1932 Olympics, and Johnny Gray, a 1992 800m bronze medalist, were among five men named on Tuesday as inductees into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame. USA Track and Field announced the inductees, who will be enshrined at a ceremony next month at Reno, Nevada, during the group’s annual convention. Also to be honored will be Don Bowden, the first American to break the four-minute mile, 19th-century speedster Bernie Wefers and Jimmy Carnes, the first president of the sport’s US governing body. “All five of these individuals are deserving of the highest honor in our sport,” USA Track and Field president Bill Roe.
■ ATHLETICS
Two dead after marathon
Two competitors in last Sunday’s New York City Marathon have since died, organizers confirmed on Tuesday. A 58-year-old man from Brazil collapsed after crossing the finishing line and later died at the Lennox Hill Hospital, while a 66-year-old American, who walked the distance, suffered a heart attack several hours after completing the race. “There’s nothing harder for us than when one of our participants doesn’t make it home at the end of the day. We express our deepest condolences to the athletes’ families,” said Mary Wittenberg, president of the New York Runners. The deaths are the first in the race since 1994.
■ SOCCER
Atletico to appeal sanctions
Atletico Madrid said on Tuesday it will appeal the decision by European soccer’s governing body UEFA to ban spectators from the club’s next match — a Champions League clash against PSV Eindhoven. The Spanish side filed its appeal at the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and called for the ban and 150,000 euro (US$192,000) fine to be annulled. UEFA initially imposed a two-match fan ban after supporters misbehaved during an Oct. 1 Champions League fixture against Marseille, but reduced it to a one-match ban last Friday.
■ FOOTBALL
Culpepper to play for Lions
Three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Daunte Culpepper is coming out of retirement to play for the winless Detroit Lions. Head coach Rod Marinelli told the team’s Web site that Culpepper had agreed terms, pending a medical. “Any time you can add a really good football player, and obviously he has been that, [you try to],” said Marinelli. “He’s an aware guy, a quality guy and I don’t know how you close your eyes to a player like that.” Culpepper, 31, announced his retirement in September after being unable to find a team following his release by the Oakland Raiders. Fourth-year quarterback Dan Orlovsky, who started his fourth game for the Lions on Sunday at Chicago, sprained his thumb and may miss this week’s clash with Jacksonville.
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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