TENNIS
Baghdatis beats Querrey
Marcos Baghdatis saved two match points before defeating fifth-seeded Sam Querrey of the US 1-6, 7-6 (10/8), 6-4 on Wednesday to advance to the quarter-finals of the Nottingham Open in England. The ninth-seeded Cypriot trailed 5-6 and 7-8 in the tiebreaker before taking the second set to force a decider against last year’s finalist Querrey. Baghdatis had 10 aces, two fewer than Querrey, as he reached his fifth quarter-final of the year. He next plays second-seeded Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, who came through a tough three-setter against Daniel Evans of Britain 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/5), 6-4. Seventh-seeded Andreas Seppi beat Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 6-3 and plays Dudi Sela of Israel in the last eight. Sela defeated Benjamin Becker of Germany 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. Fourth-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov beat Canadian qualifier Frank Dancevic 6-3, 7-5.
OLYMPICS
Schwazer lying: Tallent
Olympic race walk champion Jared Tallent has given short shrift to Alex Schwazer’s protests of innocence after the Italian’s latest positive drugs test. Schwazer, who won the 50km gold at the 2008 Beijing Games, returned a positive result for a steroid, the Italian athletics federation said on Wednesday, six weeks after he returned from a near-four year doping ban to win the world title in Rome. Schwazer denied any wrongdoing at a media conference and suggested he was a victim of sabotage, but Tallent, who was runner-up in Rome and edged for the Beijing gold by the Italian, was having none of it. “Last time Schwazer held a press conference he lied and told made-up stories,” Tallent tweeted on Thursday. “Why would anyone believe him this time?” he added, with the hash-tag “#banschwazer.” Schwazer was excluded from his London title defense after testing positive for the blood-booster EPO in 2012 and cried when admitting his guilt at a media conference. Banned for three years and six months, he was given an additional six-month ban with three months suspended last year for evading anti-doping tests. His ban expired at the end of April. Tallent was presented with the London Games gold medal in Melbourne last week, four years after he finished runner-up behind a Russian drug cheat who was stripped of the title by a Court of Arbitration of Sport decision in March.
OLYMPICS
Kuwait sues over suspension
Kuwait has filed suit in a Swiss court seeking US$1 billion in damages from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over its suspension from competition, Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Minister of State for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman al-Humoud Al Sabah said. The IOC and world soccer governing body FIFA suspended Kuwait in October last year over laws that allow government interference in sports. Al Sabah said that the suspension, which threatens to exclude Kuwaiti athletes from the Olympics in Rio in August, was “unjustifiable” and imposed without proper investigation. “It’s totally unacceptable that Kuwait is treated in this unfair way and barred from international sports activities without any appropriate probe being conducted,” the official KUNA news agency quoted the minister as saying late on Wednesday. Apart from the IOC and FIFA, 16 other international sporting federations have also blacklisted Kuwait. In January, the Kuwaiti government filed suit in a domestic court seeking damages of US$1.3 billion from 15 Kuwaiti sports officials it alleged had actively sought the suspensions.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
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