Sports titbits
Henin wins despite broken finger
Four-time French
Open champion Justine Henin overcame a broken finger and fired-up
German opponent to win her opening match in Stuttgart, her first clay
court tournament since her comeback.
The 27-year-old was
taken to a tiebreak in the first set before breaking Julia Goerges’s
resistance in the second for a 7-6 6-1 first-round win.
Henin, finalist in
the Australian Open in January in only her second tournament back after
a break of nearly two years, is gearing up for her first visit to her
favourite venue at Roland Garros since her self-imposed exile from the
game.
Her last appearance in Paris was in 2007, when she won her fourth title there.
“The improvement is
pretty good, even if my finger is not yet beautiful; it’s still really
blue but the pain is a lot less and that’s a nice feeling,” Henin said.
“I need matches
before the French Open, that’s for sure, everything I’ve done since the
beginning of the season has been pretty good. I’m just trying to get
used to my career again.”
Cavaliers slay Bulls as injury cloud hovers over James
The top-seeded
Cleveland Cavaliers advanced to the second round of the playoffs with a
tightly-contested 96-94 win over the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday, but the
victory was overshadowed by an injury scare to LeBron James.
James fell just
short of his second straight triple-double with 19 points, 10 rebounds
and nine assists, but was forced to shoot a free throw left-handed
after aggravating a right elbow injury late in the game.
“(The injury) has
been going on for a few weeks. Hopefully, it doesn’t continue to bother
me as we move forward,” James told reporters.
The reigning league MVP said he had had X-rays during his team’s day off and they had revealed no structural damage.
“We’re trying to
figure it out,” he added. “It just feels like when you hit your funny
bone and sometimes you can’t feel it.” Cleveland will now face the
Boston Celtics, who wrapped up their series 4-1 with a 96-86 win over
the Miami Heat on Tuesday.
Alminova escapes with three-month ban
European indoor 1,500 metres champion Anna Alminova has been banned for three months for failing a drugs test.
The 25-year-old
Russian tested positive for the banned substance pseudoephedrine at
last month’s world indoor championships in Doha, where she finished
seventh in the 1,500m final, the IAAF said on its website.
Viktor Berezov, a
member of the anti-doping commission of the Russian athletics
federation, said Alminova was given a lighter sentence because she had
treated herself with an over-the-counter cold medicine containing the
substance.
“We just received confirmation from the IAAF that they had approved Alminova’s sanction,” Berezov said.
Seven other top
Russian female athletes, including twice world 1,500 metres champion
Tatyana Tomashova and world indoor 1,500 metres champion Yelena
Soboleva, were handed two-year doping bans for manipulating their drug
samples in 2008.
Alminova, whose
suspension ends on July 8, said she plans to compete at the European
championships in Barcelona from July 27 to August 1.
Schumacher to swap cars
Mercedes will
switch Michael Schumacher’s car for next week’s Spanish Grand Prix to
try and get the seven-time Formula One champion back up to speed.
“It’s not a new chassis per se, it’s a chassis we used in testing,” team Principal Ross Brawn told Reuters.
“The one he had
(before) got damaged during the first few races and we repaired it as
best we could at the races. But now we are back at base we are going to
re-introduce the test chassis and he will be using that in Barcelona.”
Brawn said the wheelbase would also be changed to improve weight
distribution, and Mercedes are also planning a major aerodynamic revamp
for the first race of the European season after four in the Middle and
Far East.
Schumacher, a
winner at Benetton and Ferrari with Brawn as technical director, is
making his Formula One comeback at the age of 41 and after retiring at
the end of 2006 with a record 91 race wins.
Schumacher finished 10th in the latest race in China while Rosberg was third after leading early on.
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