Tennis: Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu has withdrawn from the Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club because of a wrist injury, meaning British wildcard Kyle Edmund is through to the quarter-finals. Edmund, ranked 85, will face fellow Briton Andy Murray in the last eight, his second on the ATP Tour this year. Yesterday, defending champion Murray beat fellow Briton Aljaz Bedene 6-3 6-4. Mathieu suffered the wrist injury beating Britain’s Dan Evans on Wednesday. It was not clear how serious the injury was.
Golf: Former Ryder Cup player Stephen Gallacher could be sidelined until August after suffering an injury setback that will force him to change his swing. Gallacher underwent an operation in March on a tendon in his left hand and initially returned to action at the end of April, but the injury has flared up and forced him to withdraw from last week’s Lyoness Open. “I have been bothered by inflammation on a tendon on my left hand for more than a year,” the 41-year-old said in a statement. “I went under the knife in March and the operation was a success, but the problem has returned.”
Weightlifting: Four Olympic champions from Kazakhstan, including the sport’s most celebrated figure Ilya Ilyin, are among 10 lifters to have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs at the London 2012 Olympics after their samples were re-analysed. Ilyin, the men’s 94kg gold medallist, and three women champions, Zulfiya Chinshanlo (53kg), Maiya Maneza (63kg) and Svetlana Podobedova (75kg), failed tests, the International Weightlifting Federation said.
Boxing: Amir Khan has decided not to pursue the chance to represent Pakistan at this summer’s Rio Olympics, reports said. Khan, who won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Games, had said earlier this month that he would “love” the opportunity to represent the country of his parents’ birth. But he has now acknowledged he will not be ready to seek a place in Rio via the final qualification tournament which is due to take place in Venezuela early next month.
Surfing: Six years after an Irishwoman rode the waves off Iran’s coast to the bemusement of locals, the country has become the 100th member of the International Surfing Association (ISA). Easkey Britton’s visit to the country in 2010 inspired a local surf movement on Iran’s Baluchestan coast, so much so that the Iran Surfing Federation was formed this year and even women are participating, fully covered and wearing hijabs. The unlikely rise of the sport in the Islamic country has been welcomed by the ISA who describe Iran’s membership as a landmark moment in the global growth of surfing.