■ BASEBALL
Panama stay alive in series
Luis Bazan struck out nine and Chitre, Panama, took advantage of sloppy fielding by Vancouver, British Columbia, to win 4-2 and stay alive at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. After an opening-day loss to Canada, Panama won the rematch and advanced to play Taiwan on Wednesday. With the score 1-1, Panama took the lead in the third when Abel Gallardo scored on an error. Two more runs scored in the fourth after a bad throw off Alberto Quintero’s grounder to third sailed into right field. Two runners scored, making it 4-1. Canada added a run in the sixth when Lucas Soper tripled and scored on a passed ball. Bazan struck out the game’s final two batters. Zach Chaba also homered for Canada. Toms River, New Jersey blanked Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 10-0 in a consolation game. Kevin Blum homered, tripled twice and struck out eight, and Russell Petranto, Patrick Marinaccio and Joey Rose also homered for New Jersey. Blum was sharp on the mound against the Saudi Arabia squad comprised mainly of children of Americans living abroad.
■ BASKETBALL
NBA players to star in China
NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard will star in a basketball film with an award-winning Chinese director titled Amazing. The NBA and Shanghai Film Group announced the joint production effort on Tuesday, calling it “the first NBA-themed motion picture outside of North America.” The filming will take place in New York, Beijing and Shanghai through November and feature top actors from Asia. The movie is scheduled to open next summer. Amazing is directed by Hu Xuehua, a winner of the Kennedy Center Honors. The NBA will play its fifth set of pre-season games in China when the Houston Rockets and New Jersey Nets play in Beijing and Guangzhou in October.
■ FOOTBALL
Jets get highest-paid center
Center Nick Mangold signed a seven-year contract with the New York Jets on Tuesday that will make him the NFL’s highest paid player at the position. The two-time Pro Bowler could earn US$55 million over the length of the deal, which includes a guaranteed US$22.5 million, local media reported. The contract surpasses the five-year US$37.5 million deal signed by the St Louis Rams’ Jason Brown last year. “Fantastic,” Mangold said on the team’s Web site. “I could not be more excited to have that done, to be here as long as I can imagine. “To be able to say, ‘the highest-paid center’ is very nice,” added Mangold, who was selected in the first round of the 2006 draft by the Jets with the 29th overall pick.
■ FOOTBALL
Bengals fine twitterer
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was fined US$25,000 by the NFL for using an electronic device to post messages on Twitter during a pre-season game, the Bengals said on their Web site on Tuesday. Players are banned from possessing electronic devices during games and from using social media 90 minutes before kickoff until the end of post-game media obligations. Ochocinco fell foul of the rule during an exhibition game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Aug. 20. The colorful wide receiver has been fined a number of times during his nine years in the NFL, including regular charges for excessive touchdown celebrations.
‘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
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner, Jelena Ostapenko, advanced to the Wimbledon women’s doubles final on Friday, defeating top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in straight sets. The fourth-seeded duo bounced back quickly after losing their opening service game, capitalizing on frequent unforced errors by their opponents to take the first set 7-5. Maintaining their momentum in the second set, Hsieh and Ostapenko broke serve early and held their lead to close out the match 6-4. They are set to face the eighth-seeded pair of Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens
Outside Anfield, the red sea of tributes to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, has continued to grow this week, along with questions over whether Liverpool could play at Preston today, their first game since the brothers’ tragic loss. Inside Anfield, and specifically a grieving Liverpool dressing room, there was no major debate over the pre-season friendly. The English Premier League champions intend to honor their teammate in the best way they know how. It would be only 10 days since the deaths of Jota and Silva when Liverpool appear at Deepdale Stadium for what is certain to be a hugely
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