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Tennis: Maria Sharapova (picture) will compete in her eighth WTA Finals next month in Singapore after officially qualifying this week, the women’s tennis governing body said. The 28-year-old Russian, who missed the US Open because of injury, won the event on her debut in 2004 and has since reached the final twice in 2007 and 2012. Serena Williams, winner of the last three WTA end-of-year tournaments, and Romania’s Simona Halep have also booked their tickets for the October 23-November 1 event. Five more places are still available.
Athletics: The pair of running shoes worn by Roger Bannister when the Briton ran the first sub-four minute mile in 1954 were sold by auctioneers Christie’s this week for £266,500. The black kangaroo leather shoes, with six spikes on each sole, were accompanied by a letter of provenance signed by Bannister, 86, who was selling them to benefit charitable causes. Expected to fetch between £30,000-£50,000, they were bought by an anonymous bidder at the ‘Out of the Ordinary’ sale in London. Bannister wore the shoes on May 6, 1954 at Oxford‘s Iffley Road cinder track when he ran the mile in three minutes 59.4 seconds.
Rallying: Jari-Matti Latvala kept his outside hopes of winning the World Rally Championship alive with an impressive show on the first day of the Australian Rally. The 30-year-old Volkswagen driver opened up a two-second lead over Northern Ireland’s Kris Meeke, in a Citroen DS3. Championship leader Sebastien Ogier, who will clinch a third successive drivers’ title if he finishes ahead of Finn Latvala in this rally, was 4.6 seconds adrift of the leader in his Volkswagen.
Athletics: Dutch sprint queen Dafne Schippers, who won the 200 metres gold medal and the 100 silver at last month’s world championships in Beijing, is contemplating taking on the long jump next season. Schippers believes she can leap seven metres, a feat that would put her among the top six performances of 2015. “I want to do something else other than just sprint,” the former heptathlete said. However, Schippers said she would focus on the 100, 200 and 4 x 400 relay at the Rio Olympics next year. The long jump is nothing new to the world sprint champion because she holds the Dutch record of 6.78 metres from her heptathlon days.
Tennis: Polish players Piotr Gadomski and Arkadiusz Kocyla have been banned for seven and five years respectively after being found guilty of betting-related offences under the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme. Both were also fined $15,000. The 24-year-old Gadomski, ranked 908th in the ATP rankings with earnings this year of $362, was found guilty at a London hearing last month of four charges including “directly or indirectly soliciting or facilitating a player to not use his or her best efforts in an event”. Kocyla, 21, is ranked 898th and has won $552 in prize money in 2015. He was found guilty on three corruption charges, according to the Tennis Integrity Unit who carried out the investigations on behalf of the Grand Slam Board, the International Tennis Federation, the ATP World Tour and the WTA.
Surfing: Big-wave surfer Shawn Dollar, who broke his neck in four places during a wipe-out earlier this week, said he immediately lost feeling in his arms and legs and didn’t know if he could make it back to shore. Dollar, who holds the world record for the largest wave ever paddled into, suffered the neck injuries when he struck a large rock after wiping out on Monday while surfing along the Central California coast. Despite the four fractures, Dollar somehow avoided paralysis as he initially had feared. “I heard the breaks in my neck, and I immediately wasn’t sure if I was paralysed,” Dollar, 34, said. Dollar was in the water with big-wave surfer Sion Milosky at the famed Maverick’s break south of San Francisco in 2011 when Milosky was killed in a wipe-out.