Russian third seed Maria Sharapova advanced to her first Indian Wells WTA/ATP Masters Series semifinal on Thursday, beating Mary Pierce of France 6-4, 6-3, to extend her match-winning streak to 11 games. Her victory set up a clash with American top seed Lindsay Davenport, who continued her domination over France’s Nathalie Dechy.
Ferrari boss Jean Todt has tipped the world champions to bounce back from a poor start to the season and retain their constructors’ crown by the end of the year. The Italian team chose to start the season with a modified version of their old car and found themselves outpaced by their rivals.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: ”I am out there to mike what I like and, frankly, you don’t have to like what I mike.” Poet Kgafela oa Magogodi released his latest collection of poetry and prose last week. He shares a few words with ZA@Play.
CD OF THE WEEK: 50 Cent’s last album, The Massacre, sounds like the work of someone for whom music is merely a sideline, a distraction from the serious business of perpetuating a violent, ghoulish sideshow, writes Alexis Petridis.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Mira Nair does a good job of turning William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair into a two-hour celluloid production with Reese Witherspoon at the helm, writes Shaun de Waal.
In football, messiahs should never reach middle age. Far better that they suffer martyrdom young or fall under a bus before their 40s. Otherwise they become mere mortals. This is what has happened to Kevin Keegan, whose final exit from the game at 54, which his departure from Manchester City surely is, has been his least dramatic.
Of all the charges levelled at Jose Mourinho in the past fortnight, Uefa’s prissy suggestion that he is a poor role model has to rank among the more obvious instances of cobblers to emanate from their saintly halls. ”Coaches are role models for the players and the fans,” the Uefa communications director William Gaillard said of the Chelsea manager.
When he took over from Sir Bobby Robson earlier in the season, I said Graeme Souness would provide the backbone that Newcastle’s relegation-bound flops desperately needed. It took time, of course, but after the stirring 4-0 win over Olympiakos in the Uefa Cup on Wednesday night, the Toon finally began to sing the name of their Scottish boss.
Three white lions have been reintroduced into the heart of the Timbavati, almost 30 years after their species disappeared from the famous private reserve bordering the Kruger National Park. The three white lions arrived in the Timbavati heartland barely a week before a major row erupted between Bantu Holomisa and the Timbavati chairperson over commercial trophy hunting in the reserve.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday said that the recently announced closure of clothing manufacturer Rex Trueform’s Salt River plant threatened to put another 1Â 000 people out of work in the Western Cape and bring the clothing, textile and leather industries one step closer to complete collapse.