Today's other sports stories in brief
Murray makes uneasy progress
TENNIS:Andy Murray survived a real scare to come from a set and a break down against unseeded Sergiy Stakhovsky and progress to the second round of the Dubai Tennis Championships yesterday afternoon.
Four-and-a-half years after he beat the Ukrainian to win the US Open boys’ title, the second seed looked like he might be heading for an early exit.
Stakhovsky, though, who needed lengthy treatment for an injury to his ankle in the first set, retired hurt a game from defeat, Murray winning 6-7 (3/7) 6-3 5-3.
The Scot himself appeared to struggle with an ankle injury late in the contest, but he was still able to grind out the win in two hours and two minutes.
Cuban Rigondeaux defects and signs with Arena
BOXING: Cuban boxer Guillermo Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who fell into disfavour with the Cuban government after trying to desert the national team two years ago, has defected, a boxing promoter said yesterday.
Rigondeaux, the bantamweight champion at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, is in Miami and has signed a contract with Arena Box-Promotion..
Rigondeaux, 28, was dropped from the Cuban squad for the Beijing Olympics in August after running afoul of Cuban authorities when he and team-mate Erislandy Lara failed to turn up for scheduled bouts at the Panamerican Games in Rio de Janeiro in July 2007.
The two were soon located by Brazilian police, who said the boxers regretted their decision and wanted to return to Cuba.
Honda still seek serious buyer
MOTOR SPORT: Honda has revealed it currently has no serious buyers to take over its Formula One team.
The company announced last year that it was pulling out of the sport, blaming the global economic crisis.
The deadline for an agreement to buy the team is believed to be this week, one month before the 2009 season’s first race in Melbourne.
“There are various offers for the team but we haven’t seen any serious buyer,” Honda president Takeo Fukui said.
“We find the sale process difficult.”
It is thought the team are up for sale for €1 – although any buyer would need to find a budget in the region of €42 million to run the outfit for the new campaign.
A management buyout, led by current chief executive Nick Fry and team boss Ross Brawn, has been mooted for some time.
Warren lands first blows
BOXING:Promoter Frank Warren landed the first verbal blows in his British High Court scrap over money with world champion Joe Calzaghe yesterday. Warren, who once managed Calzaghe, brought in barrister Ronald Thwaites QC to argue that not only did he not owe the boxer as much as €2 million in unpaid fees, Calzaghe owed him €1 million for breaking his contract over his last fight.
10 Irish champions to face USA
BOXING:The USA senior boxing team will finish their training camp in Colorado Springs today ahead of flying to Dublin tomorrow for Friday's meeting with Ireland at the National Stadium.
Irish boxing chiefs have called up 10 of the Irish champions from last weekend’s Elite National Senior finals for the first of the two internationals on Friday.
The teams meet again at the Arch Centre in Kildare on Sunday night. The IABA will name their panel for Sunday’s clash today.
Olympic heroes Ken Egan, Paddy Barnes and John Joe Nevin, and middleweight champ Darren O’Neill are amongst those in the squad for Friday.
IRELAND (squad v USA): Light flyweight: Paddy Barnes; Flyweight: Declan Geraghty; Bantamweight: John Joe Nevin; Featherweight: Carl Frampton; Lightweight: Ross Hickey; Light welterweight: Philip Sutcliffe; Welterweight: Willie McLoughlin; Middleweight: Darren O’Neill; Light heavyweight: Ken Egan; Heavyweight: Con Sheehan; Super heavyweight: David Joyce.
Stanford fiasco does Clarke no harm
CRICKET:Giles Clarke has ended his most traumatic week as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board by being officially re-elected for a further two years.
The 55-year-old former chairman of Somerset has faced calls to resign following his role in the embarrassing link-up with Texan billionaire Allen Stanford, who has since been charged with fraud by the US authorities.
But after emphatically resisting those resignation demands for the last week, Clarke’s re-election was rubber-stamped yesterday by the 41 members of the ECB. He will now continue in the role until March 2011 – assuming his desire to continue in the post remains
