David Beckham’s move to Major League Soccer may have been good for his wallet but it has apparently not helped his popularity in Asia. Empty seats and surprising indifference greeted soccer’s greatest star, who was mobbed like a rockstar on his first trip to the region, as he completed an Asian tour with LA Galaxy.
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/ 17 November 2007
World number one Roger Federer scored his best-ever win over arch-rival Rafael Nadal to reach his fifth Masters Cup final on Saturday. The defending champion edged a tight first set and destroyed the fading Spaniard in the second, winning 6-4, 6-1 in just 59 minutes.
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/ 10 November 2007
World number one Roger Federer will aim to put an unusually patchy tennis season behind him with victory number four at the elite Masters Cup starting on Sunday. The defending champion, smarting from two rare defeats in the past month, signalled his determination by arriving nearly a week early for the year-ending showpiece.
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/ 30 September 2007
The United States put their goalkeeping row behind them with a 4-1 win over Norway to claim the World Cup’s third spot on Sunday. With controversial ‘keeper Hope Solo axed for her outburst over the semifinal loss to Brazil, the two-time champions turned on the style with three goals in 14 second-half minutes.
With the exercise boom in full swing, a record number took part in this weekend’s Hong Kong marathon, shrugging off heat, humidity and a soulless course for the good of their health — or was it? With air pollution soaring, questions are being asked about the benefit of exercising here.
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/ 13 November 2006
Rafael Nadal’s Masters Cup hopes took a blow on Monday when he was handed a shock straight-sets defeat by American eighth seed James Blake. The world number two was broken twice in the first set and lost a second-set tie-break to love as Blake won 6-4, 7-6 (7/0).
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Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari shrugged off the chaos that marred Portugal’s 1-0 win over The Netherlands, officially the dirtiest match in World Cup history with an accumulated 20 yellow and red cards. The Brazilian said while Deco should not have been one of the four players sent off, similar scenes were relatively common in South America.
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Ten-man Mexico scraped into the World Cup second round on Wednesday despite a chaotic 2-1 loss to a second-string Portugal. Mexico gave away a penalty, missed another and had a man sent off with 30 minutes left, but squeaked through when Group D rivals Angola were pegged back 1-1 by Iran.
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He has a goal-scoring record that not even Pele could match, but age may finally be catching up with Iran’s evergreen striker Ali Daei. Coach Branko Ivankovic said what some Iranians have been saying for years: Daei, now 37, is simply too slow.
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Portugal qualified for the World Cup knock-out stages for the first time in 40 years on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Iran. Iran offered robust resistance for more than an hour before Brazilian-born Deco’s unstoppable opener. Cristiano Ronaldo settled the matter with a penalty 10 minutes from the end.