Giggs Out: Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs is set to be out for a “couple of weeks” according to Sir Alex Ferguson after the winger suffered a hamstring injury in yesterday’s 2-2 draw with Bolton. Both Giggs and England striker Wayne Rooney were substituted in the second half at the Reebok Stadium.
Milito: Diego Milito could miss Inter’s Champions League clash with Werder Bremen on Wednesday after suffering a thigh strain. The striker limped off during Saturday night’s 1-0 defeat at Roma and tests have highlighted “a slightly thigh strain in the right leg”. Inter’s website did not specify how long the Argentine will need to recover from this setback.
Milan: Milan have left behind Alexandre Pato, Massimo Ambrosini and Massimo Oddo for their Champions League trip to Ajax. Pato and Ambrosini have been out for a couple of weeks with muscular problems and again miss out. Oddo and youth team player Rodney Strasser are fit, but have been omitted from the 21-man squad travelling to Amsterdam for tomorrow’s game.
Women U-17: South Korea saw off neighbours and rivals Japan 5-4 in a penalty shoot-out to win the women’s FIFA Under-17 world title after the two sides had finished all square 3-3 after extra-time. Spain took the third place play-off after a Raquel Pinel goal saw off reigning champions North Korea.
Badminton: World number one Lee Chong Wei squeezed past old foe Lin Dan of China to win the men’s singles title at the Japan Open yesterday. The top-seeded Malaysian, who reached the final without losing a game, needed a tough 81 minutes before scoring a 22-20, 16-21, 21-17 victory over the three-time former world champion. In the women’s competition, unseeded 2002 world junior champion Jiang Yanjiao shocked world number one Wang Xin 23-21, 21-18 to claim the title.
Cycling: Italy’s Filippo Pozzato put his world championship title credentials on display by winning the Herald Sun World Cycling Classic Ballarat yesterday. Pozzato, who rides for the Katusha team, took victory by outsprinting Poland’s Maciej Bodnar and Chilean Carlos Guinez in the 130km race in Australia. Switzerland’s three-time world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara was fourth while Australia’s main contender, Simon Gerrans, was 15th.
Tennis: Russia’s Alisa Kleybanova won only her second WTA title yesterday when she thumped the Czech Republic’s Klara Zakopalova 6-1, 6-3 in the Hansol Korea Open final. The fifth seed and world number 28 was in fine fettle all week, recovering from losing the first set in her second-round match against Ksenia Pervak to give up just 15 games in the next eight sets she played. Kleybanova improved to 2-0 in career finals, having won her only previous final at another Asian hardcourt tournament, in Kuala Lumpur in February.
Golf: Australian Brendan Jones up-staged Japan’s big guns to claim a one-stroke victory at the Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open yesterday in Kobe and snap a title drought stretching back more than two years. Starting the third and final round three strokes off the lead, the 35-year-old fired a closing round five-under-par 66, the week’s lowest, to lift his ninth career title.