Sports

London, July 05: Serena Williams beat her sister Venus 7-6 (7/3), 6-2 in the Wimbledon 2009 final on Saturday to record her third win in the biggest tennis event.

The victory added to her 2002 and 2003 wins at the All England Club and shattered Venus’s hopes of a hat-trick of titles and sixth overall which would have taken her level with Billie Jean King.

The sisters have between them eight Wimbledon singles titles now.

Saturday’s final was the fourth all-Williams title match-up at Wimbledon and eighth in all Grand Slams.

Mumbai, July 04: Stung by threats from the Shiv Sena, the Indian cricket board is contemplating to accommodate the Deodhar Trophy tournament in a cramped 2009-10 schedule.

Board of Control of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary N. Srinivasan said Saturday the fate of the Deodhar Trophy will be decided in the next working committee meeting.

Chandigarh, July 04:Indian hockey team captain Sandeep Singh will be inducted as an officer in the Haryana police, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda announced Saturday.

Sandeep, who hails from Haryana, has been playing for the Indian team for the past few years and will be given a rank of deputy superintendent of police.

Hooda made the announcement during a function here to honour 13 outstanding sportspersons from the state. The sportspersons were given cash rewards totalling over Rs.10 lakh.

Johannesburg, July 04:South African cricket fans say 2008 was the most successful year for the country’s cricket team, according to an internet survey.

The survey conducted by Cricket South Africa (CSA) found that 96 percent of the fans who took part in the exercise believe 2008 was the most successful year for the South African cricket.

The survey drew nearly 550 responses, Pakistan’s Online news agency said.

CSA CEO Gerald Majola said the online fan survey demonstrated the kind of support cricket enjoyed among the people in South Africa.

Kolkata, July 04: Former Bengal hockey player Manjinder Singh died after drowning off a sea resort where he went along with colleagues for a picnic, near Contai in East Midnapore district today.

Singh, 42, who played for Calcutta Customs team, went missing while swimming in the Bay of Bengal after a high tide came this noon, Bengal Hockey Association secretary Gurbux Singh said.

However, his two colleagues were rescued from sea water.

Body of the former forward would be brought back to Kolkata, Gurbux said.

Islamabad, July 04: Pakistan is seriously considering recalling Mohammad Asif in the 30-member preliminary squad for this September’s ICC Champions Trophy after the International Cricket Council (ICC) said it would not raise any objection against the pacer’s inclusion once he completes his doping ban.

An ICC spokesman has said that once Asif completes his one-year ban on Sep 22 this year, he will be eligible to take part in any international event including the ICC Champions Trophy to be held in South Africa. The biennial tournament is scheduled to get underway Sep 24.

Washington, July 04: Serena Williams won her third Wimbledon title today, beating big sister Venus Williams 7-6 (3), 6-2 in the final.

The second-seeded Serena also beat Venus in the 2002 and ’03 Wimbledon finals, but lost to her older sibling in last year’s championship match at the All England Club.

Serena is now 6-2 against Venus in Grand Slam finals and has won 11 major titles in her career.
–Agencies

Islamabad, July 04: Former Pakistan chief selector Abdul Qadir is preparing ammunition for his July 14 meeting with a parliamentary committee and says he will candidly inform the Members of the National Assembly (MNA) about the irregularities in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

Qadir, a former Pakistan Test leg-spinner, said that he would also try to meet President Asif Ali Zardari, who is also the chief patron of the PCB, as he wants to inform him about all the problems in the board.

Madrid, July 04: Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has told television channel Cuatro that “with two more signings we will have enough.”Late on Friday, Cuatro carried out the most extensive interview with Perez since his return to Real on June 1, an interview printed by sports daily AS on Saturday.

Perez, a 62 year-old construction billionaire, has taken world football by storm with the most profligate spending spree ever seen.

Mumbai, July 04: Mumbai will open their Ranji Trohy title defence in the 2009-10 season by taking on Punjab in the Elite Division Group A tie at Mohali from November 3-6.

Mumbai had clinched the Ranji Trophy for the 38th occasion defeating Uttar Pradesh in the final in Hyderabad last season.

Elite division groupings:

Group A: Mumbai, Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Railways, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Orissa

Group B: UP, Maharashtra, Saurashtra, Karnataka, Bengal, Delhi and Baroda

Elite division schedule:

Melbourne, July 04: Cricket Australia bungled in its handling of Brett Lee after his divorce and should not have sent the “under-prepared” pacer to last year’s tour of India, where the slump in his form started, concedes CA selection panel chief Andrew Hilditch.

“The situation with Brett was extremely difficult, there is no doubt about that and in hindsight I think a lot of people would have handled that differently,” Hilditch was quoted as saying by the ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

London, July 04: Captaincy had bogged down fiery English batsman Kevin Pietersen to such an extent that he now equates the job to facing an oncoming train and says it gets worse when the team performs badly.

“All day every day, it’s like facing an oncoming train. It absolutely hammers you,” Pietersen told ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

“Then if you’re not playing well, like we weren’t in India, it’s just negative press conference after negative press conference and eventually it affects the way you play. It just weighs you down,” he added.

London, July 04: The speed with which England vacated the field at Edgbaston on Friday afternoon revealed plenty about their mindset in the lead-in to next week’s first Test in Cardiff.

The time was 5pm on a perfect summer’s afternoon, and the opportunity was there for at least another hour and a half of fine-tuning. However, it was not deemed necessary by England’s think tank, who have seen enough already, and just want to get the proper action underway now.

New Delhi, July 04: As nervousness gripped him during India’s thrilling chase in the third one-dayer against West Indies, coach Gary Kirsten said he drew comfort from skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s presence at the crease.

“Someone like MS Dhoni can hit the ball out of the ground at any time so it was comforting knowing that we had him at the crease controlling the game,” said Kirsten.

Man of the match Dhoni, hit an unbeaten 46-run knock to take India through in the rain-truncated third ODI and take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the four-match series.

London, July 04: Marcus North has urged detractors of Phillip Hughes not to read too much into the Australia opener’s failures against England’s back-up bowlers ahead of next week’s first Ashes Test.

Highly-rated Hughes has just four days to solve the dilemma of how to handle the predictable bouncer barrage heading his way in Cardiff after twice being found out by England’s discarded paceman Stephen Harmison in the final warm-up match in Worcester yesterday.

Karachi, July 04: Pakistan is seriously considering recalling Mohammad Asif in the 30-member preliminary squad for this September’s ICC Champions Trophy after the International Cricket Council (ICC) said it would not raise any objection against the pacer’s inclusion once he completes his doping ban.

An ICC spokesman has said that once Asif completes his one-year ban on Sep 22 this year, he will be eligible to take part in any international event including the ICC Champions Trophy to be held in South Africa. The biennial tournament is scheduled to get underway Sep 24.

New Delhi, July 04: The Indian cricket board said on Saturday it will work out a schedule for a key one-day domestic tournament after moves to axe the event were met with angry protests.

“The schedule of the Deodhar Trophy will be finalised at the board’s working committee meeting in August,” the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said in a press release.

The Indian media had reported that the Deodhar Trophy was being dropped from next year’s calendar to fit in matches of the Indian Premier League (IPL), leading to protests by the right-wing Shiv Sena party in Mumbai.

Hamburg, July 04: The German Olympic Committee on Saturday reacted with caution to a doping ban on the nation’s most successful Winter Olympian, speed skater Claudia Pechstein.

Pechstein, 37, was banned for two years by the ruling body ISU because she had abnormal blood values and abnormal changes of blood values at several tests, most notably at the allround world championships in February in Norway.

Pechstein is the most successful German athletes in Winter Olympics history, with five gold, two silver and two bronze medals 1992-2006.

Mumbai, July 04: The Cricket Board’s Technical Committee and the National Cricket Academy Committee are to meet here on July 8 ahead of the 2009-10 season.

“The Technical Committee meeting will be chaired by Mr Sunil Gavaskar and would undertake a review of the 2008-09 season,” said BCCI’s CAP, Prof Ratnakar Shetty.

Gavaskar used to have a meeting with the Ranji Trophy captains and coaches for getting feedbacks at the end of the season but that meeting could not be held this year because of the Indian Premier League that was held in South Africa.

New Delhi, July 04: Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni struck an unbeaten 46 off 34 balls to guide India to a six-wicket victory, under the Duckworth-Lewis method, in a rain affected third one-dayer against West Indies on Friday.

India, who now lead the four-match series 2-1, needed 11 to win off the final over of the game and Dhoni whacked Jerome Taylor’s second ball for a big six high over midwicket to make the task manageable.

Karachi, July 04: Australia A 230 and 0 for 44 trail Pakistan A 333 (Akmal 129, Ahmed 61, Iqbal 52, Bollinger 5-82) by 58 runs Scorecard

Umar Akmal continued his love for Australian attacks and pitches, rattling off his second hundred in consecutive matches to give Pakistan A the initiative in Townsville. Pakistan had resumed the day on 5 for 47 after Doug Bollinger’s rampage on the first evening, but Akmal’s defiance and half-centuries to Fahad Iqbal and Sarfraz Ahmed took them to a strong 333.

Worcester, July 04: England fast bowler Steve Harmison is certain his friend Andrew Flintoff will rebound from his disciplinary issues this week in time for the Ashes.

Flintoff, England’s leading all-rounder, was reprimanded by team officials and heavily criticized in media after he missed the bus that was taking the team to a war memorial site in Flanders, Belgium on Saturday while on a team-bonding trip.

Harmison said on Friday that Flintoff will not be affected by the backlash when the Ashes series starts in Cardiff on Wednesday.

Colombo, July 04: Veteran Sri Lankan seamer Chaminda Vaas has decided to retire from Test cricket, the country’s chief selector Asantha de Mel told AFP on Saturday.

The 35-year-old left-armer, who has served Sri Lanka at the top level for 15 years, will, however, still be available for one-day and Twenty20 cricket, the official said.

“Chaminda has told me he does not want to play Test cricket anymore, but he will continue in the shorter formats,” de Mel, a former Sri Lankan fast bowler, said.

Gros Islet, July 04: West Indies skipper Chris Gayle praised the captain’s innings played by Mahendra Singh Dhoni but felt a bit more aggressiveness on the part of his bowlers could have helped the team win the third one-dayer at the Beausejour Stadium, here.

Frequent rain interruptions affected the West Indies momentum but Ramnaresh Sarwan ensured they registered a competitive 185 for seven from 27 overs.

Karachi, July 04: Pakistan captain Younus Khan won the toss Saturday and sent Sri Lanka in to bat in the first cricket Test at the Galle International Stadium.

Pakistan opted for a lone specialist spinner in Saeed Ajmal on a wicket freshened up by early morning showers, leaving out seasoned leg-spinner Danish Kaneria.

Veteran batsman Mohammad Yousuf returned to Pakistan’s Test side after 18 months, after breaking links with the unauthorised Indian Cricket League.