TABLE TENNIS
Lin Yun-ju falls in rankings
Taiwanese Olympian Lin Yun-ju’s world ranking in men’s singles fell from 12th to 14th, the lowest since July 2019, the International Table Tennis Federation announced yesterday. The rankings are based on the sum of a player’s best eight results in events played over the preceding 12 months. Lin was penalized with zero points for two events after being absent from several World Table Tennis (WTT) tournaments. The 23-year-old has a chance to bounce back this week as he seeks to defend his title at the WTT Champions in Frankfurt. Lin on Monday won his round-of-32 match against France’s Alexis Lebrun, and today faces Germany’s Dang Qiu. Taiwan’s Kao Cheng-jui placed 24th in the rankings, unchanged from last week, while Chuang Chih-yuan rose one spot to 42nd and Feng Yi-hsin dropped one place to 50th. In women’s singles rankings, Cheng I-ching rose one spot to eighth, while Huang Yi-hua dropped one to 35th.
AUSSIE RULES
Umpire suspended for costume
Umpire Leigh Haussen has been suspended for dressing up as Osama bin Laden at an end-of-season function, the Australian Football League said on Monday. He would not be allowed to officiate during round one of next season as punishment after attending a restaurant as the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The theme of the function, in a private room at the venue in September, was “characters from the 2000s.” “I am sorry. I made an error of judgement. I never intended to offend anyone,” Haussen said in a statement. Last month six Greater Western Sydney players were banned for periods of up to four matches and seven others fined stemming from another function, themed “controversial couples.” The league said some players performed skits connected to their costumes that it considered “completely unacceptable.”
FOOTBALL
Kelce sorry for spiking phone
Retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce apologized during ESPN’s pregame show on Monday night for grabbing the cellphone of an unruly fan and spiking it to the ground before the Ohio State University-Pennsylvania State University game on Saturday. “In a heated moment, I decided to greet hate with hate,” Kelce said before ESPN’s NFL broadcast of a Kansas City Chiefs’ game featuring his brother, Travis Kelce. “I fell short this week.” Video on social media showed him walking through a crowd near Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania, when a fan began to heckle him. Jason Kelce grabbed the fan’s phone and threw it to the ground, then turned to confront the man. Another fan appeared to step between them before the altercation could escalate. “I think everybody has seen on social media what happened this week,” Kelce said. “Listen, I’m not happy with anything that took place. I’m not proud of it.”
ATHLETICS
NY sets marathon record
The New York City Marathon on Sunday broke the record for the world’s largest marathon, with 55,646 runners crossing the finish line in Central Park, organizers said. That beat the record set by the Berlin Marathon in September, when 54,280 completed the fellow World Marathon Major. The five-borough race included the most female finishers ever with 24,731, organizers said.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
The Major League Baseball World Series trophy is headed to Los Angeles, but the party is extending all the way to Japan. People milled around local train stations yesterday morning in Tokyo as newspaper extras were ready to roll off the presses, proclaiming Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as world champions along with their Dodgers teammates after a stirring Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees. The 30-year-old is a national hero in Japan whose face adorns billboards and TV adverts all over the country. Ohtani this year became the first player in history to hit 50 home runs and
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
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