Basketball
Men’s League final (game 3): BUPA Luxol vs Athleta 81-85 (Athleta lead series 2-1).
Women’s League final (game 3): Honey Athleta vs Luxol 45-63 (Luxol win series 3-0).
Tennis: Four-time finalist David Ferrer (picture) crashed out in the second round of the Barcelona Open yesterday, producing a rusty performance to lose 6-4 6-2 to Georgia’s Teymuraz Gabashvili. The world number five, who beat fellow Spaniard Rafa Nadal en route to the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters last week, was a long way from his best against a player 50 places below him on the ATP rankings. Gabashvili made precious few mistakes, breaking the second seed four times on his way to victory. Third seed Fabio Fognini from Italy also bowed out with a whimper, trailing 6-0 4-0 to Colombian Santiago Giraldo when he retired from the second round match.
Golf: World no.3 Henrik Stenson’s bid to kick-start his 2014 campaign at this week’s China Open has been hampered by a bout of flu. The Swede, who won the Order of Merit in Europe and the Tour Championships in the US last year, has struggled to reach the heady heights so far this season and said he was not feeling his best ahead of the $3.2 million European Tour event starting today. “I am just kind of waking up to be honest after a little bit of flu,” Stenson said after pulling out of yesterday’s Pro Am tournament at Shenzhen Genzon Golf club. The 38-year-old finished with a tied 14th effort at the year’s first major, the US Masters.
Rugby Union: Former New Zealand rugby league captain Benji Marshall has been released from his rugby union contracts in New Zealand, officially ending the 29-year-old’s brief foray into the 15-man game. Marshall had asked for a release from his Auckland Blues and New Zealand Rugby Union contracts on Monday after speaking with Blues coach John Kirwan about his future following a poor performance against the Wellington Hurricanes last week. Marshall’s release had to be signed off by the NZRU, which it did yesterday.
Basket, NBA: Toronto Raptors have promoted their return to the NBA post-season after a six-year absence as a ‘Northern Uprising’ and yesterday they backed up the marketing campaign with a 100-95 win over Brooklyn Nets. Victory was the Raptors’ first in the post-season since 2008 and sends the best-of-seven Eastern conference first round series back to Brooklyn for Game Three tomorrow level at 1-1. “We are the underdogs. The way our guys competed and fought I was proud,” coach Dwane Casey said. “But now the series starts, we have to go to their place and compete the same way.”
Archery: Great Britain’s Olympic bronze-medallist archer Alison Williamson has retired from her sport. The former world number one has called time on her career at the age of 42. Williamson – who took part in six consecutive Olympic Games, concluding with London 2012 – won individual bronze at Athens 2004, and also claimed individual and team silver medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. She was awarded an MBE in 2012 for her services to archery.
Cycling: Australian rider Michael Rogers probably ate contaminated meat in China before testing positive for the banned substance clenbuterol last October, cycling’s governing body said yesterday in a ruling that cleared him to ride again. The International Cycling Union (UCI) said in a statement that the Saxo-Tinkoff rider had been stripped of his results from the Japan Cup that month but would face no further sanction. Rogers, a three-times time-trial world champion and team captain at last year’s Tour de France, had been provisionally suspended in December. The UCI said it had analysed Rogers’s explanations and accompanying technical reports and found “a significant probability” that contaminated meat was to blame.