Argentina clinched a home semifinal tie against Australia after narrowly beating reigning champions Croatia in the Davis Cup quarterfinals in Zagreb on Sunday. The tie went right to the wire but Juan Ignecio Chela kept his nerve over two tie-breaks to beat Sasa Tuksar 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/5) in the deciding rubber.
Fred Couples was tied for the lead and chasing Masters history when he stood above a little 4-foot birdie putt at the second hole. He drew the club back, then propelled it forward. The blade tilted ever so slightly before striking the ball. It never had a chance, skidding past the cup on the right side by a good inch or two — a push, they call it, and a bad one at that.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday called on President Robert Mugabe to step down to pave way for a transitional government that should lead to the writing of a new Constitution and fresh elections to be supervised by the international community.
Inter Milan president Giacinto Facchetti on Sunday condemned the group of fans who attacked several of the club’s players at Milan’s Malpensa airport. In the early hours of Sunday morning, around 100 Inter supporters, still angry about their team’s exit from the Champions League on Tuesday, were waiting for the squad as they got off their flight from Ascoli.
Alex Ferguson insisted he had no qualms with Wayne Rooney’s lifestyle after a Sunday newspaper report alleged the England striker had a major gambling hambit. Rooney put the claims from the Sunday Mirror tabloid that he’d lost £700 000 since the start of the season firmly to one side by scoring United’s first and creating their second in a 2-0 win over Arsenal.
Tens of thousands of people marched through Dallas on Sunday to demand that legislators pass a law to help the estimated 11,5-million illegal workers in the United States. Many Hispanic families with small children joined the protest, part of a renewed campaign to counter efforts by conservatives in the US Congress to make illegal entry a crime.
Phil Mickelson’s impressive victory on Sunday at the 70th Masters moved him halfway toward a ”Lefty Slam”, although the southpaw United States star is not ready to ponder a four-major sweep just yet. Mickelson’s second Masters triumph in three years combined with his win at last August’s PGA Championship leave him only a US Open and British Open shy of matching Tiger Woods’ feat of four major titles in a row.
On a sunny day north of Rome, people played football, walked to church with sprigs of olive branches to celebrate Passion Sunday and stopped off at bakeries to buy cakes for lunch. They also voted in large numbers at polling stations around the historic city of Viterbo in a general election to decide whether Silvio Berlusconi is ousted from power after five years as Italy’s Prime Minister.
The United States is planning military action against Iran because President George Bush is intent on regime change in Tehran — and not just as a contingency if diplomatic efforts fail to halt its suspected nuclear weapons programme, it was reported on Sunday. In the New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh, America’s best known investigative journalist, concluded that the Bush administration is even considering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon.
Eight South African women have been locked up in a Mauritius prison for the past eight weeks, News24 reported on Monday. It quoted Marius Mey, fiancé of 27-year-old Michelle Roux, one of the women, as saying: ”They have been held in the dungeons for the past eight weeks.