Former world number one Marat Safin defeated South African Rik de Voest in straight sets on Tuesday to book a place in the second round at Wimbledon. The Russian number 26 seed won 7-6 (7/5), 6-4, 7-5 in the first-round match on court 13 to secure a tie against Pakistan’s world number 279 Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi.
Wallabies players would be happy to kick the Springboks out of the Tri-Nations and instead play an extra Test against the All Blacks following South Africa’s decision to send an under-strength team on tour to Australia and New Zealand. Springbok coach Jake White will leave key players at home.
Sachin Tendulkar’s 99 was the centrepiece of India’s 242 for eight in the first one-day international against South Africa at Stormont here Tuesday. But India might have expected to finish with a higher total, having been 181 for two heading into the final 10 overs.
A Cape Town woman on Tuesday continued her testimony about her horror taxi ride at the hands of a ”taxi conductor”. One of the two women named in the case, Lorraine Pindela, told the Cape Town Regional Court the shock of the ordeal caused her to menstruate in the taxi.
The centuries-old search for the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to have reigned as a pharaoh in Egypt, may finally have ended. Egypt’s antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass will announce in Cairo on Wednesday ”the most important find in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun” in 1922.
The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town was packed to capacity on Tuesday during the bail application of Najwa Petersen, who is alleged to have murdered her husband, popular entertainer Taliep Petersen. Magistrate Jackie Redelinghuys postponed the combined bail application of Petersen and her three alleged accomplices.
A high-school teacher and a journalist were given jail terms on Tuesday for insulting Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Touré, judicial sources said, in a case that has raised questions over press freedom in that country. Four other journalists charged with defaming the president were given suspended sentences in the case.
A roadside bomb explosion in the Somali capital on Tuesday killed five women and a man and wounded nine other people, witnesses said. The United States, meanwhile, called for the immediate release of opposition leaders arrested by the Somali government.
Gauteng’s development programmes are not only about readiness for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, Premier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Tuesday. ”We must avoid creating the impression that our programmes are driven by the desire to prepare for the 2010 World Cup,” Shilowa said in his budget speech to the provincial legislature.
Kenyan police on Tuesday said they had shot dead at least 25 suspected members of the Mungiki criminal gang since last week, after at least 13 people were killed in a surge of violence blamed on the group. Thursday’s conviction of a former Mungiki leader on weapons charges ended a brief lull in the slaughter.