TABLE TENNIS
Taiwanese make final
Taiwanese pair Lin Yun-ju and Chen Szu-yu face a South Korean duo in the final of the mixed doubles at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender in Tunis after they beat a Chinese pair in the semi-finals yesterday. Lin and Chen, who were paired after the WTT Contender in Almaty in September last year, defeated Liu Yebo and Liu Weishan 3-0. The Taiwanese pair, ranked 10th in the world, in the final face Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin, who are ranked seventh. Lin and Chen were defeated in their respective round of 16 singles matches earlier yesterday. World No. 8 Lin was beaten 3-2 by China’s Sun Wen, ranked 89th in the world. Chen, ranked 31st in the world, failed to make it to the quarter-finals after losing 3-1 to Brazilian player Bruna Takahashi, ranked 38th.
BASEBALL
MLB eyes Paris, Taiwan
The MLB on Friday said that it is looking to hold a regular-season series in Paris in 2025, and added that games in Asia — including Taiwan — were being planned. “We are in the process of working on Paris in 2025,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told a news conference ahead of games in London this weekend between the St Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. “We’re not at the point where we’re going to make a commitment or a more formal announcement, but it is in the planning stages.” The MLB would continue to take baseball to locations worldwide, Manfred said. He called Europe a “strategic priority,” but the MLB is not stopping there. “We are also interested in places in the Americas, where it’s closer to home, and baseball has more of a rooting in the culture,” he said. “Japan, Taiwan and [South] Korea also remain important initiatives for us and we will be playing in those countries over the course of the next few years,” he said.
SOCCER
World Cup decision delayed
FIFA’s search for the men’s 2030 World Cup hosts was postponed on Friday due to delays about agreeing on rules for the campaign and the final vote. The vote by about 200 FIFA member federations was moved to the last quarter of next year instead of a previously expected meeting in September next year. Bid rules will aim to be settled on at a FIFA council meeting before the end of October, soccer’s governing body said, “with the bidding process to be officially launched thereafter.”
SOCCER
Vote to decide on coach
Nigeria coach Jose Peseiro’s job is in the hands of the fans after Nigerian Football Federation president Ibrahim Gusau said he would let them decide if the Portuguese should stay on. Peseiro, who has coached Porto and Sporting in his home country and took the Nigeria job in May last year, has led his side to the Africa Cup of Nations finals in Ivory Coast starting in January, but his contract ends on June 30. There is now a national debate over whether the 63-year-old should be retained and Gusau said the people can decide. “We have the plan to push the votes to Nigerians to hear their views and thoughts,” Gusau said on the LovingFootball radio show. “We’ve tried the foreign coaches and also the local coaches. Maybe we didn’t get it right in the area of getting the right person. We are going to push it to the public, whether we should continue with Peseiro or he should go.”
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
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