TENNIS: Former world no.1 Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters made triumphant returns to the WTA after long lay-offs with victories on Wednesday at the Miami tournament. Seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams, who has not played a WTA event since pulling out of last year’s US Open, defeated Japan’s Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-0, 6-3 in 77 minutes. Belgium’s Clijsters, playing for the first time since her Australian Open semi-final loss to Victoria Azarenka, rallied to beat Australia’s Jarmila Gajdosova 4-6, 6-1, 6-0.

SWIMMING: Sisters Cate and Bronte Campbell became the first siblings in 40 years to be selected in Australia’s Olympic swimming team with a one-two finish in the 50-metre freestyle final at the selection trials yesterday. Cate, 19, who had already clinched selection for London as runner-up in the 100m freestyle, won the one-lap dash in 24.44 seconds. Bronte, two years younger, was second in 24.61 with three-time Olympic champion Libby Trickett missing out when placing fourth.

RUGBY UNION: Toulon sporting director Bernard Laporte has been slapped with a 60-day ban by the French National Rugby League (LNR) for comments he made about the level of the refereeing during recent Top 14 games. The former France coach criticised the refereeing after his team's 22-22 draw against Perpignan in their Top 14 clash on March 10, as well as the previous match they won 19-6 against Montpellier.

FORMULA ONE: Force India has been ordered to stump up €850,000 in unpaid fees to an aerodynamics company after a long-running court case. The pay-out was demanded by the High Court in London following a copyright infringe-ment case. Force India had accused wind-tunnel operators Aerolab and Caterham technical chief Mike Gascoyne of copyright breaches which it valued at £13m. But while Force India were awarded €25,000 for minor copyright breaches, the court also ordered it to pay €846,000 in fees owed to Aerolab for development work.