■TENNIS
Bets open on Federer twins
World No. 1 Roger Federer’s daughters are less than 48 hours old, but bookmakers on Friday had already posted odds on the twins winning Wimbledon. British bookies Ladbrokes were offering 100-1 for either Charlene Riva or Myla Rose to win the grasscourt title just a day after Federer’s wife, Mirka, 31, gave birth to the tots. The twins, whose Swiss father has won a record 15 grand slam titles, were also 25-1 to claim one of the four slams with all bets based on either doing so before their 25th birthdays. The girls, who were born at a private clinic in Switzerland on Thursday, are 50-1 to win a grand slam as part of the same doubles team and 200-1 to take the Wimbledon doubles crown.
■DIVING
Champs take gold again
Olympic champions Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia successfully defended their gold medal in women’s 3m synchronized diving at the world championships in Rome on Friday. Guo and Wu earned 348 points over five dives. Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape of Italy took silver with 329.70 points, and Julia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdniakova of Russia — the Olympic silver medalists — were third with 310.80. Guo also won the individual 3m springboard title Tuesday, and now has 10 world championship golds to go with her four Olympic victories.
■FORMULA ONE
War may be over soon
Formula One’s civil war could be nearing an end after FIA said on Friday the document that Agoverns auto racing’s premier sport could be signed by next week. F1’s governing body said its World Motor Sports Council had received the new Concorde Agreement, which would come into force “on receipt of confirmation that a satisfactory cost-reduction agreement is in place.” All 13 teams registered for next season’s championship negotiated the document, FIA said in the statement. “I think that we are very, very close to reaching a solution,” Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said.
■RUGBY UNION
Nude pictures removed
Alleged nude photographs of All Blacks rugby star Dan Carter were pulled from an Internet auction site on Friday within hours of being offered for sale, apparently a hoax. A vendor using the login PerpignanPatty offered 11 pictures of the New Zealand flyhalf. Carter played for the Perpignan club during the last French season before suffering a serious Achilles tendon injury. The pictures were said to include a “raunchy at-home striptease” and the vendor claimed they would have the New Zealand Rugby Union “squirming.” They were posted on the Trademe Web site at 7pm on Friday and removed by Web site staff less than three hours later. A Trademe spokesman said PerpignanPatty had broken Web site rules by using more than one account. He said there was also no evidence the pictures existed and the auction was likely a hoax.
■GOLF
John Panton dies aged 92
British golfer John Panton, who was the oldest surviving Ryder Cup player, has died at the age of 92. Scotsman Panton represented Great Britain and Ireland in the competition on three occasions, in 1951, 1953 and 1961. He also won the British Match Play Championship in 1956 and finished fifth in the Open Championship in the same year. European Tour board of directors chairman Neil Coles said on the European Tour Web site: “He was the last of that generation.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Marcus Rashford’s first goals for Aston Villa on Sunday inspired a 3-0 win against Preston North End that sent his side into the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time in 10 years. Rashford struck twice in the second half at Deepdale to end Preston’s stubborn resistance before Jacob Ramsey wrapped up Villa’s long-awaited return to the last four. Villa are to face Crystal Palace — 3-0 winners at Fulham on Saturday — in the semi-finals at Wembley Stadium in London. Revitalized since joining Villa on loan from Manchester United during the January transfer window, Rashford is beginning to show the form that
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