RUGBY UNION
Concerns over concussions
Damian McKenzie has been brought into the All Blacks squad for the British and Irish Test series after fullback Ben Smith on Saturday was forced off with concussion. Smith left the field in the first half of the 30-15 victory after making some uncharacteristic errors under the high ball. He failed a concussion check. It is Smith’s third concussion this season and All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said the vice captain’s run of head injuries was a concern. “Benda [Smith] failed the concussion tests so he is undergoing protocols and Damian McKenzie will come in for him,” Hansen told reporters yesterday. “There’s something going on there that is not quite right, so we need to find out what it is. Like any concussion, he’s got to go through the protocols and until he passes them he’s not going to play. He still has to [undergo] testing. It’s not something we will rush into. We will give him a few days and let him go through it,” Hansen said. Midfield back Ryan Crotty also injured his hamstring in the first half on Saturday and could be out for up to four weeks, Hansen said. Crotty’s Canterbury Crusaders teammate Jack Goodhue, who was named with the All Blacks squad as injury cover for a rib injury to Crotty, would remain with the team.
BOXING
Pac Man vows win
Philippine boxer Manny Pacquiao arrived in Australia ahead of his title fight with Jeff Horn and said: “I will be going home as world champion.” The “Pac Man” touched down in Brisbane late on Saturday from Manila with a large entourage for his World Boxing Organization welterweight title bout at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on July 2. “In all my years of boxing, I have never been as motivated and fired up as this fight,” he told reporters at the airport. “My team is very happy with my preparation. I am looking forward to this and I will be going home as world champion.” Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 knockouts) is a clear favorite against Horn, although the Filipino has not stopped an opponent since his 12th round TKO of Miguel Cotto in 2009. The eight-weight world champion has said he is using the bout as an opportunity to prove he remains a global force at the age of 38, as he juggles boxing with a full-time job as a Philippines senator. “I’m so thankful for this great opportunity to be here in Australia and fight here, and the warm welcome of the people here,” Pacquiao said. “I think this is one of the biggest crowds that I’m going to fight to. I love the fans shouting and cheering for me, or for Horn. I like that, it’s exciting.”
BADMINTON
Srikanth stuns Chen to win
India’s Kidambi Srikanth yesterday claimed a first victory over Olympic and two-time world champion Chen Long to win the Australian Open Superseries final in Sydney. The 11th-ranked Srikanth outgunned the sixth-ranked Chinese star 22-20, 21-16 in 46 minutes for his second successive Superseries title after winning the Indonesia Open earlier this month. It was Srikanth’s first win in six encounters with the Rio Olympic champion, with Chen defeating the Indian at the Sudirman Cup on Australia’s Gold Coast last month. Indians have now won four of the six Superseries this year. Srikanth is in career-best form after returning from injury in April. He made it to the Singapore Open final and won the Indonesia Open ahead of the Australian event. Chen is on a comeback trail from a lengthy injury and has not won a Superseries title since the 2014 Denmark Open. Olympic bronze medalist Nozomi Okuhara earlier downed Akane Yamaguchi 21-12, 21-23, 21-17 in an all-Japanese women’s final.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘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
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