Andre Agassi won the 800th singles match of his career on Tuesday night, beating fellow American Alex Bogomolov Jnr 6-3, 6-1 in the first round of the Mercedes-Benz Cup at UCLA. The 34-year-old Agassi is just the sixth player to reach 800 on the ATP Tour since the advent of the Open era in 1968.
Athens is heading down the home strait as the Greek summer Olympics start in 30 days. Fears around infrastructure problems have largely abated, but slow ticket sales in the wake of September 11 may prove to be a real headache — that is if the athletes themselves don’t run into drug trouble.
Top Springbok lock Victor Matfield will miss the Tri-Nations campaign after sustaining a knee injury during practice. A medical examination carried out on Wednesday confirmed that Matfield will be unable to play any part in this year’s tournament. Albert van den Berg has been called up to replace him.
Richard Virenque won the 10th stage of the Tour de France held over 237km between Limoges and Saint Flour on Wednesday. The 34-year-old Frenchman claimed his seventh stage overall on the race after another brave breakaway to claim the race’s polka dot jersey.
Protea Glen residents are to march on the Lenasia Office of the Sheriff on Wednesday to protest bond default evictions in the Soweto suburb, a local leader said. Protea Glen Residents’ Association secretary Tumi Kwuateng said a teenager, George Malatje, was injured by a police rubber bullet during protests on Tuesday.
The eThekwini Council has discovered — through a forensic audit of contracts from the eThekwini municipality for Durban’s uShaka Marine World — that two directors of a joint venture that had won a tender were, in fact, salaried employees — who had no idea that they were directors and had not received any share of the profits. Suddenly, fronting, which has been around for a while, is in the news.
Nathan Sharpe replaced injured George Gregan as captain and Chris Whitaker moved into the vacant scrumhalf spot in the Australian line-up announced on Wednesday for the series-opening Tri-Nations rugby union Test against New Zealand. Sharpe was the mainstay in the second row for the Wallabies last year, playing in 14 Tests.
Ernie Els isn’t going to beat himself up for shooting 80 in the final round of the US Open, which cost him a chance at a third title and the number-one world ranking. But he let the United States Golf Association have it — not only for the way Shinnecock Hills was set up in the final round, but for comments by a top official that Els gave up.
Jacques Freitag, South Africa’s world champion, won the high jump at the annual Gran Premio International Athletics meeting in Salamanca on Tuesday evening with an excellent height of 2,34m, only 1cm below the 2004 best of 2,35m. ”I am really coming right,” Freitag told his manager.
Australian Robbie McEwen claimed his second victory on this year’s Tour de France in Gueret, France, on Tuesday after a dramatic finale to the ninth stage that robbed a two-man breakaway of sure victory metres from the finish line. The 32-year-old McEwen claimed his second sprint finish victory inside a week.