FOOTBALL
Bucs and Bears to play
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are to host the Chicago Bears as scheduled on Sunday, bringing NFL action back to Florida as the state grapples with damage from Hurricane Irma. More than 15 million people remained without electricity in Florida in the wake of the storm, which ravaged the Caribbean and the Florida Keys, but produced less damage than forecasters feared on the mainland of Florida. “We have been working tirelessly with the Tampa Sports Authority, as well as the NFL league office, to ensure that Raymond James Stadium would be available to host our season opener against the Chicago Bears this Sunday,” Buccaneers chief operating officer Brian Ford said in a statement on Tuesday. “Hosting the game is important to us, as Tampa Bay has been through a lot over the past few days. We look forward to providing our fans and the entire region an opportunity to come together this Sunday to kick off our 2017 season.”
RUGBY UNION
New competition planned
Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest is preparing to launch the Indo Pacific Rugby Championship, a six-team competition to begin in August next year. Forrest was behind a push to have the Western Force remain in Super Rugby, but the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) cut the Perth-based club from the competition for next season. The Force also lost an Australian Supreme Court attempt to have the union’s decision overturned. Perth is to be one of the teams in the new league, while Singapore has been mentioned as another. Forrest yesterday said he was in negotiations with the ARU to ensure players who compete in his competition will also be eligible to play Super Rugby and represent the Wallabies. Forrest said it would be in the ARU’s best interests to allow Wallabies players to feature in the new competition. Last month, Forrest called on Cameron Clyne to resign as ARU chairman over rugby’s national governing body’s decision to axe the Force from the revamped Super Rugby competition. However, the two men have since reconciled their differences and Forrest said his discussions with the ARU about the new competition had been positive. “There’s been a fair bit of water under the bridge with Cameron and I,” Forrest said. “We had a frank and friendly discussion when he was here recently, but now with the Western Force becoming an international team ... there should be nothing but collaboration on behalf of Australian rugby.”
GOLF
Shanghai event canceled
The LPGA on Tuesday canceled a tournament in Shanghai less than one month before it was due to be played after failing to get local government approval for the event. The Alisports LPGA tournament, won last year by seven-times LPGA Tour winner Kim In-kyung, was scheduled for Oct. 5 to Oct. 8. It is the second time in three years the tournament, previously known as the Reignwood LPGA Classic, has been scrapped. “Unfortunately, we have just received word that the tournament was unsuccessful in obtaining approval from the local district government,” LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said in a statement. “The hardest part about this news is that we have a title sponsor, a tournament operator, a TV production group and a host venue all set to go.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but