SOCCER
Arsenal exit brings ‘clarity’
Arsenal’s Europa League exit has brought “clarity” to their season and the squad must now focus on the Premier League, manager Mikel Arteta said on Thursday. Arsenal and Sporting drew 1-1 in London and finished 3-3 on aggregate in the tie before the Portuguese club advanced to the quarter-finals with a 5-3 shoot-out victory. Others to advance were Juventus, Feyenoord, Manchester United, Fenerbahce, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, AS Roma and Union Saint-Gilloise. Arsenal have been eliminated from all three cup competitions they were involved in, but are five points clear in the league and in position to win a first English title since 2003-2004. “It’s a huge blow, but it brings clarity to the season,” Arteta told Arsenal’s Web site. “It’s 11 games to play for, 11 Premier League games, and a big final against Crystal Palace. The focus has to be there, the energy has to be there and learn from tonight.”
TENNIS
Alcaraz, Swiatek advance
Top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz on Thursday beat Felix Auger-Aliassime for the first time in his career to book a semi-final clash with Jannik Sinner at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, while women’s top seed Iga Swiatek had a last-four match against Elena Rybakina. Alcaraz posted his first victory over Auger-Aliassime in four meetings with a 6-4, 6-4 win to keep his bid to regain the world No. 1 ranking on track. “It’s wonderful to beat Felix finally, and the way I did it, playing at a great level,” Alcaraz said. Sinner reached the final four with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over Taylor Fritz. Swiatek swept past Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-3, while Rybakina outlasted 76th-ranked Czech Karolina Muchova 7-6 (7/4), 2-6, 6-4.
CRICKET
Capitals buy US franchise
The Indian Premier League’s Delhi Capitals have bought a stake in the Seattle franchise of a new T20 tournament in the US. Capitals co-owner GMR Group has partnered with a investors including Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Satya Nadella to run the Seattle Orcas in Major League Cricket, which is to begin in July. “We see America as the new frontier for cricket’s growth globally and the Pacific Northwest provides an incredible opportunity for us to bring the resources of GMR Sports to the region,” GMR Group CEO Kiran Kumar Grandhi said in a statement on Thursday.
FENCING
Event in Germany canceled
Germany’s fencing federation on Thursday canceled a women’s foil world cup event after the sport’s global governing body reversed a ban on athletes from Russia and Belarus. Athletes from the two countries were banned from international competition after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. More than 60 percent of nations last week voted to allow Russians and Belarusians to resume competing. German federation president Claudia Bokel said that the decision had triggered “heated discussions,” adding: “Our solidarity goes to the people of Ukraine who are suffering from the war of aggression. The German Fencing Federation accepts last Friday’s decision. We now want to give a clear signal that we would have liked a different result and that we still see a large number of open implementation questions from the world federation, which make it impossible to carry out the tournament.”
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
RSS