Tennis: Victoria Azarenka’s China Open title defence wilted in the first round when the Belarussian lost to Germany’s Andrea Pet-kovic 6-4 2-6 6-4 yesterday. Azarenka’s 15 double faults, to go with 44 unforced errors, mirrored her erratic display over two hours 22 minutes against Petkovic who appeared to be feeling dizzy in the second set. The loss for second seed Azarenka followed her second-round defeat by Venus Williams in Tokyo last week. Petkovic looked in discomfort in the second set, needing medical time out, and she lost seven straight games as Azarenka forced the decider.
Rugby Union: South Africa lock Flip van der Merwe will miss the Rugby Championship decider against New Zealand on Saturday after he was banned for one week for striking an opponent. SANZAR, the southern hemisphere’s rugby authority, held a judicial hearing yesterday and found Van der Merwe guilty of striking Australian winger Joe Tomane with his forearm as he attempted to make a tackle in the Springboks’ 28-8 victory at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday. South Africa must beat the All Blacks by more than seven points and score at least four tries at Ellis Park if they are to win the Rugby Championship this season.
Cricket: England all-rounder Ben Stokes has been named the Cricket Writers’ Club Young Cricketer of the Year. Stokes helped guide Durham to the County Championship title and ended the year with selection to England’s Ashes squad for this winter’s series. Stokes, who follows Joe Root in winning the 64-year-old award, took 42 wickets at 26.57 in the first division while also adding 615 runs including a crucial century in the win over title rivals Yorkshire at Scarborough. The 22-year-old then made his late push for an Ashes call-up in the one-day international series against Australia, taking career-best figures of five for 61 in the final match at Southampton.
Motorcycling: Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty won race two in Laguna Seca on Sunday to go second in the World Superbikes championship stan-dings. The Northern Irishman overtook Davide Giugliano (Althea) and championship leader Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) in the last four laps to seal an entertaining victory in California. Sykes, who won an incident-hit race one on Saturday, led for most of the race, but dropped down the field after being overtaken by Laverty and in the end finished fourth. With two rounds to go, Sykes remained at the head of the championship standings, 23 points clear of Laverty, who moved second just a point ahead of team-mate Sylvain Guintoli.
Basket, NBA: Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra signed a multi-year extension with the NBA club, it was announced yesterday. The move comes one day after the Heat announced several front-office moves, including promoting Andy Elisburg to general manager and hiring Juwan Howard as an assistant coach. Spoelstra had one season remaining on the contract he signed in 2011. Spoelstra is 260-134 in his first five seasons with Miami. The Heat went to the play-offs each of the last three years and won the past two NBA titles.