World number one Roger Federer fended off a tenacious challenge from Fernando Gonzalez on Saturday, downing the 15th-seeded Chilean 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 to reach the Toronto Masters Series final. It wasn’t exactly the Federer Express, but the top-seeded Swiss finally chugged into his 17th straight ATP final — a streak dating back to his semifinal exit at Roland Garros in 2005.
The United Nations said Israeli and Lebanese leaders had agreed a ceasefire that will take effect on Monday to end the month-old war, but fighting raged on Sunday as Israeli forces met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas. Israeli aircraft also launched scores of strikes on more than 50 villages and towns across Lebanon on Sunday.
It was not unlike an ambiguous medical report for Orlando Pirates after their goalless Caf African Champions League draw against Ghana’s Hearts of Oak at Ellis Park last night that ”the operation was a success, but the patient died”. Pirates produced their most fluid and pleasing soccer of what has so far been a mainly melancholy and miserable sea.
A storm in the Bay of Bengal sank seven fishing boats and at least 60 Bangladeshi fishermen were missing, police said on Sunday. The storm on Saturday also triggered a metre-high water surge, washing away some houses and shops on the island of Saint Martin, about 500km south-east of the capital Dhaka.
Whatever else you can say about maverick motorcycle millionaire Simon Fourie, he’s never boring. As a penniless law student and apprentice public prosecutor in Durban back in the 1970s, he moonlighted as a taxi-driver to fund his expensive motor-cycle racing addiction. He soon discovered that most of his clientele were sailors who wanted to be taken first to a bottle store, then to a brothel.
While I was watching <i>The Fast and the Furious, Tokyo Drift</i>, I wondered why anyone would go through the tedious process of making such a dreadfully weak movie that is essentially an excuse to show off the growing worldwide phenomenon of drifting. Why not just make a documentary and save the money you would have spent on actors, asks Sukasha Singh.
I’ve always been fascinated by rally drivers simply because it must take nerves of steel to be able to push those souped-up cars to the limit on often slippery dirt roads, knowing that the slightest miscalculation could result — as it often does — in costly accidents. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to try because I’m more at home on a properly tarred racetrack, writes Sukasha Singh.
The debate is officially over. With 147kW of power on tap, Kawasaki’s ZX-14 is the most powerful production motorcycle in the world, and its 0 to 100kph acceleration time of 2,5 seconds makes it the world’s fastest accelerating production machine, on two wheels, or four.
Kazakhstan-born Oleg Maskaev stopped Hasim Rahman in the final minute of the 12th and final round on Saturday to seize the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title. The triumph for the 37-year-old former Russian Army lieutenant, who became a United States citizen two years ago, left no American-born fighter atop the heavyweight division among the major sanctioning bodies.
Twenty people, including eight Ethiopians, were arrested after Johannesburg police foiled robberies at warehouses in Fordsburg and Sandton, recovering stolen goods valued at about R10-million. Johannesburg police spokesperson Superintendent Chris Wilken said the men were arrested on Friday night and early Saturday morning after a police stake-out at the two warehouses.