Wednesday, January 13, 2021Jumada I 29, 1442 AH

SPORTGULF TIMES

Neymar set to return for PSG in ‘special game’ today

Bumrah races against time to get fi t for fi nal Test at Gabba

CRICKETCRICKET| Page 3 FOOTBALL FOOTBALL | Page 6

DAKAR RALLY

Peterhansel extends lead as al-Attiyah stays in second

Page 2

World champ Agbegnenou starts new season with gold

DOHA MASTERS JUDO

By Yash MudgalDoha

Reigning world and Euro-pean champion Clarisse Agbegnenou of France started the new season

on a winning note at the Inter-national Judo Federation’s 2021 Doha Masters at the Lusail Multi-purpose Hall yesterday.

Agbegnenou, who won her fi fth European title in Prague on November 20, defeated Nami Na-brkura of Japan in the fi nal to win the -63kg category gold.

“I am very happy because it was really tough. It is nice to start (the season) like that but I would keep in mind that I need to do a lot of work and to be ready for the Ol-ympic Games,” Agbegnenou said.

Agbegnenou, the silver med-allist at the Rio Games in 2016, is getting ready for the Tokyo Games.

“I am already qualifi ed for Ol-ympics. I wanted this competi-tion to see myself what I can do and assess myself to know what I need to work on. This event gave me confi dence that I can put up my level and I can work on other things. I have good mo-tivation and power so I have to stay like this. Defi nitely, I have to improve a lot and work on new techniques,”Agbegnenou said.

The four-time world champion Frenchwoman praised Qatar for hosting the event successfully during the coronavirus pandem-ic.

“It is really hard what is hap-pening to the world, but Qatar is organizing this event really well. We wanted to see this country more and I hope we can see it in good times because it seems re-ally beautiful.” The bronze med-als of the category went to winner of the Tbilisi Grand Prix Sanne Vermeer of the Netherlands and Andreja Leski of Slovania.

In the -70kg women’s category,

Yoko Ono of Japan claimed the gold medal. She defeated Russian Madina Taimazova. In the fi nal, Taimazova resisted well during regulation time, but the golden score period was too much for the young Russian, who had to suff er a defeat by hold down.

In the men’s -81kg category, reigning European champion Tato Griglashvili, from Georgia, defeated Frank De Wit of the Netherlands. The fi nal seemed rather balanced for most of reg-ulation, but following a slight

injury, De Wit seemed slightly distracted. It helped Grigalash-vili take advantage of the situa-tion to throw him before apply-ing an unstoppable arm lock.

2018 world champion South Korean Changrim An claimed the gold medal in the -73kg category. He defeated Soichi Hashimoto of Japan in a tough final.

At the end of regular time no point was scored and the athletes entered golden score, where they continued to neu-

tralize each other’s moves.It was only after three min-

utes and 43 seconds of extra time that Hashimoto applied a dangerous technique - for which he received a Hansoku-make (defeat by grave infringe-ment) - and An won the third gold medal for Korea in the event.

Both of Qatar’s judokas crashed out yesterday morning. Khalil Rabahi and Morad Ze-mouri, both participated in the men’s -81kg event, but failed to

get past their rivals in the first and second round respectively.

The 28-year-old Zemouri, who represented Qatar at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and had a first-round bye, lost to Dominic Ressel of Germany in the second round. The 23-year-

old Rabahi lost to experienced opponent world No 19 Anri Egutidze of Portugal.

The men’s under-100kg and over-100kg, and women’s un-der-78kg and over-78kg bouts will be held today.

RESULTSMen’s -73kgGold: Changrim An (Korea)Silver: Soichi Hashimoto (Japna)Bronze: Igor Wandtke (Ge-wrmany), Turave Khikmatillokh (Uzbekistan)Men’s -81kgGold: Tato Griglashvili (Georgia)Silver: Frank De Wit (Nether-lands)Bronze: Ivaylo Ivanov (Bulgaria), Sagi Muki (Israel)Women’s -63kgGold: Clarisse Agbegnenou (France)Silver: Nami Nabrkura (Japan)Bronze: Sanne Vermeer (Nether-lands) Andreja Leski (Slovania) Women’s -70kgGold: Yoko Ono (Japan)Silver: Madina Taimazova (Russia)Bronze: Kim Polling (Nether-lands), Giovanna Scoccimarro (Germany)

Clarisse Agbegnenou of France (in white) in action against Nami Nabrkura of Japan in the 2021 Doha Masters at the Lusail Multipurpose Hall yesterday. PICTURES: Jayan Orma and agencies

HE President of the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday met with International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer who is currently visiting Doha to attend the IJF Doha Masters. HE Sheikh Joaan welcomed Vizer, noting the fruitful and deep relations between the two parties and discussed means to develop them further. He thanked the IJF for its role in developing the sport and increasing its popularity around the world, aff irming that Qatar will continue supporting judo at all levels. On his part, Vizer expressed his satisfaction with his visit to Doha and praised the international sporting status of Qatar. HE QOC secretary-general Jassim Rashid al-Buenain also attended the meeting.

Sheikh Joaan meets International Judo Federation president

‘I am already qualified for Olympics. I wanted this competition to see myself what I can do and assess myself...’

Winners of the women’s -70kg category celebrate on the podium.

Tato Griglashvili of Georgia (in white) won the men’s -81kg category gold , beating Frank De Wit of the Netherlands.

2 Gulf Times Wednesday, January 13, 2021

SPORT

‘Mr Dakar’ extends lead over Nasser with stage win

RALLYING

With three stages remaining, al-Attiyah stays second overall after finishing behind French legend Peterhansel

ReutersRiyadh

Overall leader Stephane Peter-hansel fi nally won a stage in the 2021 Dakar Rally yester-day to leave his closest rival

Nasser al-Attiyah trailing in the Saudi

Arabian desert desert The 55-year-old, nicknamed ‘Mr Dakar’ for his record 13 wins on two wheels and four, stretched his advantage over the Qatari to 17 min-utes and 50 seconds with three stages remaining. Until yesterday the French-man had not won stage of this year’s event.

Toyota’s al-Attiyah suff ered two

punctures on his way to second place in the 465km stage around Neom with de-fending champion Carlos Sainz, Peter-hansel’s X-Raid Mini JCW teammate, only 11th.The Spaniard, who had to stop and repair his car’s brakes, stayed third overall. France’s nine-times world rally champion Sebastien Loeb retired from the event. In the motorcycle category,

Chilean Jose Ignacio Cornejo stretched his lead to 11 minutes and 24 seconds over Argentina’s Kevin Benavides, who won the stage. Britain’s Sam Sunder-land was third in the standings.

Australian Toby Price crashed and was fl own to hospital by helicopter for checks. The twice Dakar winner had been second overall and was challeng-

ing for the lead on his KTM when he crashed after 155km. Defending cham-pion Ricky Brabec of the United States and Sunderland stopped to assist Price and were handed back the lost time un-der rally regulations.

“He’s a little bit injured, I think it’s his left shoulder and left arm. He hit pretty hard on the left and didn’t really know

where he was,” said Brabec.“He asked me probably seven times

where he was and who I was. I came across him and just hung out with him until the helicopter got there.”

Price had posted images on the pre-vious marathon stage of the ‘bush me-chanic’ repairs he made to his gashed rear tyre using cable ties.”

Australian GP postponed to November, China uncertain

Nehwal to play aft er false positive test at Thai Open

ReutersLondon

Formula One postponed the Australian Grand Prix from March to No-vember, with Bahrain

opening the season and China’s race left hanging, as Covid-19 forced the sport to rewrite the 2021 calendar yesterday.

Italy’s Imola circuit was added to the record 23-round schedule as the second race on April 18, after Bahrain on March 28. The third slot on May 2 was still to be confi rmed but is ex-pected to be fi lled by Portugal’s Algarve circuit, which debuted last year.

Australia was given a new date of Nov. 21 for what would normally be the season-opener in Melbourne. China’s race in Shanghai was postponed due to ongoing travel restrictions making the scheduled date im-possible.

While not listed on the re-vised schedule, Formula One

indicated China would be slot-ted in if circumstances allowed and another race dropped off . The calendar will not stretch beyond 23 races.

Both the Australian and Chi-nese races were cancelled en-tirely last year as the pandemic ripped up the sporting calendar, with the season reduced to 17 grands prix in Europe and the Middle East.

“We are pleased to con-fi rm that the number of races planned for the season remains unchanged,” Formula One’s new chief executive Stefano Domenicali said in a statement.

“The global pandemic has not yet allowed life to return to normal, but we showed in 2020 that we can race safely as the fi rst international sport to re-turn and we have the experience and plans in place to deliver on our season.

“It is great news that we have already been able to agree a re-scheduled date for the Austral-ian Grand Prix in November and are continuing to work with

our Chinese colleagues to fi nd a solution to race there in 2021 if something changes.”

Tickets for the Australian Grand Prix had yet to go on sale and local organisers said it was the right decision to reschedule.

“As the third-last race of the season, this provides the op-portunity to safely host what could be the championship-de-cider in Melbourne in the lead-in to summer,” said Australian Grand Prix Corp Chairman Paul Little.

The new calendar, which is subject to approval by the gov-erning FIA, also features three successive triple-headers.

Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy are held on succes-sive weekends from Aug 29 to Sept. 12 with Russia, Singapore and Japan from Sept 26 to Oct. 10 and then the US Grand Prix, Mexico and Brazil from Oct. 24 to Nov. 7. None of the American races happened last year due to the pandemic while the Nether-lands, Singapore and Japan were also cancelled.

AFPBangkok

Indian badminton star Saina Nehwal has been cleared to play after a false positive Covid-19 result, Thailand

Open offi cials said yesterday, following a testing muddle that sent top players to hospital.

Four players — Nehwal, Egyptian mixed doubles player Adham Hatem Elgamal, Ger-man mens and mixed doubles Jones Ralfy Jansen, and India’s HS Prannoy — tested positive for the virus, offi cials said.

But while Elgamal and Jansen were declared negative in re-examination of their samples, the two Indian players were taken to a Bangkok hospital, Badminton World Federation said earlier.

But late yesterday offi cials announced that following fur-ther tests Nehwal and Prannoy were actually virus free, along with Jansen, and able to return to play. The BWF tweeted that Nehwal’s match would be re-scheduled for today

Elgamal has been forced to withdraw after testing posi-tive on the swab test and then returning a negative antibody test. The Egyptian player has been sent to hospital for further observation and tests and will remain in isolation for a mini-mum 10 days.

His mixed doubles match with partner Doha Hany sched-uled for yesterday has been postponed.

“Subsequently, the Egyptian team are considered high risk,” the Federation said in a state-ment.

As a direct contact, Hany will have daily tests under self-quarantine until further notice, the BWF said. Women’s singles player Hadia Hosny, despite being a close contact, can play subject to a negative test.

The federation and the Bad-minton Association of Thailand said they were following all nec-essary safety measures, adding there were stringent contact tracing measures in place.

Nehwal’s husband, men’s singles competitor Parupalli Kashyap, was forced into hotel isolation and missed a match but the federation is yet to con-fi rm its rescheduling.

Meanwhile, India’s Rio Ol-ympics silver medallist PV Sindhu was a high-profi le cas-ualty on day one as she lost to Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt, 16-21, 26-24, 21-13.

FORMULA 1

BADMINTON

Sabalenka to face Kudermetova in fi nalTENNIS

AFPAbu Dhabi

World number 10 Aryna Sabalenka says she’ll do eve-rything she can to

keep her winning streak alive after she posted a 14th consecu-tive victory in Abu Dhabi yes-terday to reach her third fi nal in as many tournaments.

Sabalenka needed just 61 minutes to wrap up her 6-3, 6-2 success over the ninth-seeded Maria Sakkari and will take on Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova in the title decider in the UAE capital today.

The 22-year-old from Bela-rus, who ended her 2020 season by picking up back-to-back ti-tles in Ostrava and Linz, com-pleted an Arabian Gulf hat-trick against Sakkari, having also de-feated the Greek in Dubai and Doha 11 months ago.

The longest winning streak in WTA history was Martina Navratilova’s 74-match run in 1984. “It’s an unbelievable number. Of course I’d like to go this far and I’ll do everything I can to keep winning, so we’ll see,” said Sabalenka of Navrati-lova’s record.

“I think I’m putting my fo-cus on the right space, I’m just focusing on the right things and this helps me to, fi rst of all, not think about all these wins and secondly to keep winning.

“I think I need to keep focus-ing on my game, on my move-ment on the court and try to do everything I can in the moment and I think that works really well with me.”

Contesting the biggest semi-fi nal of her career, Kudermetova survived a 60-minute fi rst-set

battle on her way to a 7-6 (10/8), 6-4 win over Ukrainian teen-ager Marta Kostyuk.

“I have a little bit more expe-rience than Marta, she is really young, she’s 18. Today I think it was the key because I have a little bit more experience than her,” said the 23-year-old Ku-dermetova, who idolises Kha-bib Nurmagomedov and Maria Sharapova.

The world number 46 is through to her maiden WTA final and takes a 5-3 win-loss record against top-10 op-position into her clash with Sabalenka.

“From my side, I don’t have expectations from tomor-row because Aryna is a top-10 player, she plays unbelievably, she’s playing really well here,” Kudermetova said, looking ahead to the final.

“I think she has a bit more pressure than me because she’s supposed to win tomorrow, she already won two tournaments in a row. I think tomorrow I’ll play freely; I’ll try to play re-laxed and try to enjoy my final.” Sabalenka swept the opening three games and was untrou-bled until Sakkari stopped her from serving out the first set at 5-1. The Greek narrowed the gap but Sabalenka’s firepower delivered in game nine as she secured a one-set lead in just under 30 minutes.

Sakkari enjoyed a bet-ter start to the second set but Sabalenka would not relent, and the Belarusian soon earned a double-break advantage en route to victory.

“She played lights-out ten-nis, she gave me zero chances,” said the 22nd-ranked Sakkari.

The fourth-seeded Sabalen-ka fired 22 winners against a mere eight unforced errors and will be targeting a ninth career title when she faces Kuderme-tova in Wednesday’s final.Alex de Minaur will take

on Alexander Bublik in the An-talya Open final after the Aus-tralian defeated second seed David Goffin 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 yesterday.

De Minaur, the world number 23, is bidding for a fourth career title following wins at Sydney, Atlanta and Zhuhai in 2019.

Kazakhstan’s Bublik over-came Jeremy Chardy 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3 in the second semi-fi nal in Turkey. The world number 49 is aiming for a fi rst ATP crown after fi nishing run-ner-up at Chengdu and New-port two years ago.

Harrison fi ned for declining interview over wearing maskOrlando, Florida: American tennis player Christian Harrison has been fined $3,000 by the ATP after refusing to take part in a mandatory on-court interview at the Delray Beach Open in Florida as it required him to wear a mask.The qualifier, ranked 789th in the world, stunned top seed Cristian Garin of Chile 7-6(3) 6-2 on Satur-day for his first victory against a top 50 player.He decided not to wear a mask following his win and declined to be interviewed on court.

The 26-year-old spoke out against wearing masks on social media last week saying: “Healthy enough to play 3 hour matches. But I’m an absolute safety hazard walking maskless through a restaurant.”“Christian Harrison was fined $3,000 for declining the man-datory post-match on-court interview following his second round win over Cristian Garin on Saturday,” the ATP said in a statement.Harrison reached his maiden ATP

semi-final by defeating Gianluca Mager 7-6(2) 6-4 at the event on Monday.He wore a mask for the subse-quent on-court interview and later said in an Instagram post he was not aware it was mandatory to wear one for TV interviews. He added that the ATP supervisor had told him that the fine would be rescinded if he appealed and promised to follow tournament rules even if he did not agree with them.“It’s not healthy to wear a mask

in the hot sun for more time than absolutely necessary after a tough match. I was given the im-pression it was optional. I wasn’t told I would be fined,” he said in the post.“I was required to do a sit-down interview after the match with the same person which I agreed to and I did not have to wear a mask for it. It’s not about safety to wear mask for TV to talk to a micro-phone with no one around.“I don’t support masking people for the sake of it for TV.”

Qatar’s Nasser al-Attiyah and co-driver Matthieu Baumel in action during stage 9 of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

Aryna Sabalenka...unbeaten in Abu Dhabi

Paine apologises for sledging Ashwin during third Test

Surgery completed, will return with a bang, says Jadeja

CRICKET3

FOCUS

SPOTLIGHT

Gulf Times Wednesday, January 13, 2021

AFPGalle

Ten months after abort-ing their tour of Sri Lanka as the pandemic advanced, England will

fi nally play the fi rst Test tomor-row with the coronavirus still causing problems.

Joe Root’s team, missing Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, need a convincing win in the two-match series to keep alive their hopes of reaching the World Test Championship fi nal.

All-rounder Moeen Ali is also out of the two-Test series’ opener after testing positive for the coronavirus on arrival in the island on January 3.

After England left Sri Lan-ka without playing a Test last March — and cut short a tour of South Africa in December over coronavirus fears — it has been an unsettling time for the team.

But the players, living in a bio-secure ‘bubble’ in Sri Lanka, have remained unit-ed throughout, according to wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow.

“Everyone’s together. That’s been a strength of the team, the unity. It’s been a real key throughout this whole period of Covid,” he said.

Bairstow, who last played a fi ve-day match in late 2019, is expected to return to the Test team in Galle.

All-rounder Chris Woakes admitted that chances of him playing the fi rst game remain “quite slim” after being a close contact of Moeen and isolating for seven days.

“I was certainly hoping to

force my way in and with no Stokesy here it emphasises that an all-rounder’s role which myself or Sam Curran could fi ll to balance the team a bit,” said the paceman and a right-hand batsman, who started training with the squad on Monday.

“A little frustrating that I can’t do that for this Test, but I have got my head round the situation.”

With Moeen’s isolation only

ending today, Dom Bess and Jack Leach will be the premier spin bowlers in the 18-member squad.

The slow bowlers could be crucial, but England do have three reserve spinners in Ma-son Crane, Matt Parkinson and Amar Virdi.

“We can play plenty of spin if required,” coach Chris Silver-wood insisted.

“They are all here, so they’re

available. We travel with such a large group so should any even-tuality come up we have it cov-ered.”

Moeen and Leach were key to the touring England team that won 3-0 in Sri Lanka in 2018 and Silverwood said they have the muscle to beat the hosts on their home territory again.

“It is diffi cult to win here. I read (Sri Lanka head coach) Mickey Arthur’s comments

about our win in 2018 being in the back of their minds and wanting to get revenge for that,” said Silverwood.

“Do I believe we can win? Of course, I always believe our team can beat anyone. To me it’s about the processes, the con-tinual progression of the team.”

Uncapped Essex batsman Dan Lawrence is set for an in-ternational debut with Silver-wood saying the 23-year-old is “ready” for it.

England, placed fourth in the inaugural Test championship table led by Australia, need a series win in Sri Lanka to have a chance of making the fi nal at Lord’s.

Sri Lanka have just returned from a losing 2-0 whitewash in South Africa and must fi nd re-placements for injured batsman Dhananjaya de Silva and pace-man Kasun Rajitha.

W i c k e t k e e p e r - b a t s m a n Niroshan Dickwella said their absence would be a blow, but that Sri Lanka still pose a threat.

England are much weakened without Stokes and Archer, who were given permission to miss this part of a tour before the team heads to India.

“I think it is going to be tough series,” said Dickwella.

“Compared to the conditions in 2018 I think we have a better chance this time with no Arch-er, no Ben Stokes and few other players,” said the wicketkeeper-batsman.

“But we don’t take it easy. We just play our normal game.”

The left-handed batsman added: “We don’t underes-timate the England side but I think we have a good chance of winning this series.”

Windies youngsters have chance to shine: SimmonsAFPDhaka

West Indies coach Phil Sim-mons urged the young mem-bers of his squad to grab their chances in the forthcoming

three one-day internationals and two-Test series against Bangladesh.

“My rule and message to all the play-ers here is that you are not here to fi ll in,” Simmons told reporters in the team’s fi rst press conference in Dhaka, held online yesterday.

“You are here to give yourself a chance. You have a chance now to seal your place in the team.

“If you do well here, it augurs well for you moving forward.

“You come here and do well in the three ODIs and two Tests, you are putting your-self in a place from where nobody can move you. Only you have the opportunity,” he said. The West Indies arrived with a de-pleted squad in Bangladesh as a number of regular players, including captain Jason Holder and senior fi gures Kieron Pollard and Darren Bravo opted out because of coronavirus fears.

Others such as Sheldon Cottrell, Evin Lewis, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer and Nicholas Pooran also declined to travel, forcing Cricket West Indies to name an in-experienced squad for the series.

Simmons said he had no complaints about the players who decided not to travel. “I can’t say it was a wrong call for them. Everybody has their reasons and opinions,” he said.

“They made their choices. They took the best decision for them. I can’t decide what’s best for anyone else but Phil Sim-mons. “I think that all our players have been given the option from the fi rst series.

“Some chose it in the fi rst series, some in the last series and some chose it in this series. I think that people have diff erent reasons for doing things. I cannot judge anyone for not going on a tour,” he said.

Simmons said West Indies are now one of the most experienced teams in a bio-secure environment having already played series in England and New Zealand amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We know that we have to stick to the protocols even when you are out of the fi rst phase. We have to maintain distance as much as possible. It is all about keeping each other safe,” he said.

AFPSydney

Australian captain Tim Paine apologised yes-terday after launching an ugly tirade at India’s

Ravi Ashwin in the drawn Syd-ney Test, admitting he was “bit-terly disappointed” in his own conduct.

Paine said frustration got the better of him on Monday when he tried to unsettle Ashwin, who played a key role as the tourists denied Australia to salvage a draw on the fi nal day of the third Test.

“I want to apologise for the way I went about things yester-day... my leadership wasn’t good enough, I let the pressure of the game get to me,” the Australian skipper told reporters.

Stump microphones picked up Paine making a series of ver-bal jabs at Ashwin.

But the tail-ender was defi -ant and his unbeaten 39 helped keep the series level at 1-1 to set up a winner-takes-all fourth and fi nal Test in Brisbane start-ing Friday.

Paine acknowledged his ac-tions undermined the goal he set himself when appointed Test captain in 2018 to revamp the team’s toxic culture after the “Sandpaper-gate” ball-tamper-ing scandal.

“I’m a captain who wants to enjoy the game, who wants to play the game with a smile on his

face and I fell short of my expec-tations and our team standards,” he said.

Paine, who was also fi ned for dissent after an expletive-laden rant at umpire Paul Wilson on day two of the match, admitted “my mood throughout the whole Test was probably a bit off ”.

He insisted the behaviour was a “blip” that would not be re-peated and said he had not con-sidered standing down as cap-tain over the incident.

Critics, including former Eng-land captain Michael Vaughan, said Australia appeared to be heading “back to the old days” of sledging and foul language.

Star batsman Steve Smith, who was Australia’s captain during the sandpaper cheating scandal, also attracted nega-tive attention when footage suggested he scuff ed up bats-man Rishabh Pant’s guard at the crease.

The stump camera showed Smith shadow batting and then apparently rubbing off the pitch marks — made by the batsmen to judge where they stand — with his boots.

Paine said it was just part of Smith’s regular routine.

“It’s one of his manner-isms, he was marking centre, he wasn’t by any stretch of the im-agination trying to change guard or do anything like that,” he said.

Paine dropped three catches during the epic fi nal day, includ-ing a chance from Ashwin short-ly after their exchange.

IANSSydney

Left-handed India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja said yesterday that he has undergone

surgery after suff ering a blow on his thumb during the third Test against Australia played at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

“Out of action for a while, sur-gery completed. But will soon re-turn with a bang,” Jadeja tweeted.

Jadeja has already been ruled out of the fourth and fi nal Test against Australia which begins Friday at The Gabba in Brisbane.

“Jadeja suff ered a blow to his left thumb while batting on Day 3 of the third Border-Gavaskar Test that concluded on Mon-day (in Sydney). He later went for scans and the results have

shown that he has dislocated his thumb,” said a statement from the Board of Control for Crick-et in India (BCCI) on Monday evening.

“Jadeja will not be available for the fourth and fi nal Test against Australia to be held in Brisbane from January 15-19 at the Gab-ba,” it added.

Bumrah racing against time to get fi t for Gabba series-decider

SUSPENSE

IANSBrisbane

India pace spearhead Jasprit Bum-rah has suff ered from abdominal strain ahead of the fourth and fi nal Test against Australia that begins at

The Gabba from Friday.Bumrah was seen holding his stom-

ach during the third Test which ended in a draw at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) on Monday and had undergone for scans. While speculation is rife that he won’t play the fi nal Test, a BCCI offi cial told IANS that there has been no confi r-mation on his availability. “There is no confi rmation on it yet,” said the offi cial when asked about Bumrah’s availability.

The team landed in Brisbane yesterday afternoon and will assess his injury over the next couple of days.

The right-arm pacer has three days to recover and the Indian team will do its best to ensure his availability for the fi nal Test as his absence following the pullout

of Umesh Yadav (injured in second Test), Mohammed Shami (injured in fi rst Test) and Ishant Sharma (who didn’t travel at all to Australia), will mean that the visi-

tors will be forced to fi eld a very inexpe-rienced pace attack at The Gabba.

Mohammed Siraj (two Tests), Navdeep Saini (one Test) have both made debut in

the ongoing series while Shardul Thakur on the bench has played just one Test in his career. Left-arm fast bowler T Na-tarajan is yet to play a Test. Kartik Tyagi is also there but as a net bowler. He is yet to play any form of international crick-et and has played just two fi rst-class matches.

Bumrah has been the most over-worked pace bowler in both camps, hav-ing bowled 117.4 overs in the Test series. Overall, on the Australia tour, he has bowled 169.1 overs (including 22 in the warm-up fi xture and 29.3 in ODIs). This follows 60 overs he bowled in the Indian Premier League (IPL) before coming to Australia.

The right-arm pace bowler had suf-fered a lower back injury late last year. He did not play an international after August, 2019 and made his international return only in January 2020.

The series is currently tied at 1-1 with Australia winning the fi rst Test in Ad-elaide while India registering win in the second match in Melbourne.

Pucovski under injury cloud for fourth Test

Sydney : Australian opener Will Pucovski is in doubt for the fourth Test against India, with Cricket Australia confirm-ing yesterday that the opener dislocated his shoulder while fielding in Sydney.Pucovski’s performance in his first match for the Test side had been a bright spot for the Aussies, who were held to a draw in the third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday.“Pucovski suff ered a shoulder subluxation injury while diving in the field on day five,” Cricket Australia said in a statement.“He will continue rest and re-habilitation over the next two days before a decision is made on his fitness for the fourth Test match.”

Losing Pucovski could cause headaches for the Australian top order after the 22-year-old stepped up to replace Joe Burns, who struggled in the first and second Tests.Injury woes have also hit the India camp ahead of the Brisbane Test, with Ravindra Jadeja ruled out with a dislo-cated thumb.The tourists have already lost fast bowlers Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma to injuries while batsman KL Rahul was out ahead of the third game with a sprained left wrist.The teams flew to Brisbane yesterday with the four-Test series tied at 1-1 ahead of final game at the Gabba starting Friday.

England and Lanka set for action aft er 10-month delay

PREVIEW

BOTTOMLINE

England left Sri Lanka without playing a Test last March as the pandemic struck

This file photo taken on January 11 shows India’s Ravichandran Ashwin (R) fist-bumping with Australia’s captain Tim Paine at the end of the third Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

England’s Jonny Bairstow has said unity is the real key for his team during Covid times.

SPORTGulf Times Wednesday, January 13, 20214

Belichick declines Medal of Freedom from Trump

ReutersBoston

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick said on Monday he has decided not to accept

the Medal of Freedom from US President Donald Trump in the wake of last week’s siege of the Capitol by the president’s sup-porters.

Politico reported on Sunday that Trump had planned to be-stow the highest civilian hon-our on Belichick. Trump faces an attempt by Congressional Democrats to remove him from offi ce after he urged supporters to march on the Capitol dur-

ing a rally where he repeated false claims that the November 3 election was “rigged” against him. At least fi ve people died in the attack. “I was off ered the opportunity to receive the Presi-dential Medal of Freedom,” Beli-chick said in a statement. “Sub-sequently, the tragic events of last week occurred and the deci-sion has been made not to move forward with the award.”

Belichick said above all he was an American citizen “with great reverence for our nation’s val-ues, freedom and democracy.

“I know I also represent my family and the New England Pa-triots team,” he continued. “...Remaining true to the people, team and country I love out-

weigh the benefi ts of any indi-vidual award.”

The White House was not im-mediately available for comment. News that Belichick was being lined up for the Medal of Freedom sparked widespread negative re-action on social media. “If this story about Bill Belichick accept-ing a Medal of Freedom from the disgraced occupant of the White House is true, he’s dead to me,” Bob Ryan, a Boston Globe sports columnist emeritus, wrote on Twitter. “Say it ain’t so, Bill.”

In 2016, Trump read a glow-ing letter from Belichick while on the campaign trail, in which the coach praised his courage and leadership. It was criticised by some fans but did not seem to

aff ect Belichick’s standing with players in the locker room. Rob-ert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, is also friendly with Trump.

The US president has had a long-running fi ght with the Na-tional Football League over play-ers kneeling during the national anthem, a gesture that was fi rst adopted by some Black players to protest against racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Trump called on the league to ban players from kneeling in protest. In the Patriots’ home state of Massachusetts, Trump received only 32% of votes cast in the presidential election in November. Joe Biden is set to be sworn in as the 46th US presi-dent on January 20. “Bill is on

the spot here,” Dan Shaughnessy, a long-time sports columnist for the Boston Globe, said before Belichick’s statement. “If he re-ceives the award, it makes things diffi cult for him in his locker room and in this community.”

With the Patriots slumping to their fi rst losing season since 2000, Belichick needs good rela-tions with players and prospec-tive free agents as they look to shore up defi ciencies on their roster. Belichick’s teams have won a record six Super Bowl championships but this season the Patriots posted a 7-9 record without star quarterback Tom Brady, who is gunning for a sev-enth win with his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

SPOTLIGHT

‘Remaining true to the people, team and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award’

ReutersNew York

Doug Pederson’s fi fth season as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles was also his

last. Pederson is out as the Eagles coach, the team an-nounced Monday.

“Coach Pederson and I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss what that col-lective vision would look like moving forward,” Eagles own-er Jeff rey Lurie said in a state-ment. “After taking some time to refl ect on these conversa-tions, I believe it is in both of our best interests to part ways.”

Pederson’s fi ring comes on the heels of a meeting between Pederson and Lurie last week, which ESPN reported “did not go well.” The report also said that Lurie remained “un-decided” on whether to retain Pederson and that there would be another meeting this week.

Following a season-ending loss to the Washington Foot-ball Team, Pederson voiced confi dence he was going to be back as head coach for a sixth season.

“I feel fully confi dent to be the head coach of the Eagles in 2021,” Pederson said. “The thing I’m most proud of this football team, we have been in the postseason three of the last fi ve years since I’ve been here and that’s pretty good.”

Pederson led the Eagles to their only Super Bowl win in franchise history after the 2017 season, and he posted a over-all record of 46-39-1 in fi ve seasons with the Eagles. Since

the win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, however, the Eagles are 22-25-1. Pederson had a 4-2 playoff record with Philadelphia.

Lurie reportedly had con-cerns that included Pederson’s plan to fi x an off ense that un-derperformed in 2020, the future at the quarterback po-sition and the makeup of the coaching staff . The contracts of defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, senior off ensive as-sistant Rich Scangarello and senior off ensive consultant Marty Mornhinweg expired, and they will not be returning.

Pederson reportedly pre-ferred to fi ll the off ensive coor-dinator role with Press Taylor, the team’s 32-year-old quar-terbacks coach. ESPN reported Lurie wanted the position fi lled from outside the organisation.

The Eagles’ off ense ranked 24th in the NFL in yards per game (334.6), 26th in scoring (20.9 points) and 28th in pass-ing yards (207.9). Pederson removed Carson Wentz as the starting quarterback after 12 games and replaced him with rookie Jalen Hurts.

Multiple outlets have re-ported Wentz wants time to determine where he stands on returning to the Eagles, despite being under contract. General manager Howie Roseman in-dicated the day after the sea-son ended that trading Wentz wasn’t an option.

“When you have play-ers like that, they’re like fi n-gers on your hand,” Roseman said. “You can’t imagine that they’re not part of you, that they’re not here. That’s how we feel about Carson.”

Pederson out as Eagles head coach

NFL

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick smiles during a victory parade after winning Super Bowl LIII, in Boston, Massachusetts, US, on February 5, 2019. (Reuters)

In this file photo taken on December 19, 2020, head coach Doug Pederson of the Philadelphia Eagles talks with quarterback Jalen Hurts (right) during their NFL game against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. (AFP)

Community Engagement stakeholders bring Fan Zone experience to life during Amir Cup fi nalF

ootball fans were treated to a special occasion on Qatar National Day, as the 48th Amir Cup fi nal

became the fi rst offi cial match to be played at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium. The 40,000-capacity venue is the fourth Qatar 2022 stadium to be inaugurated with just under two years to go until the country hosts the fi rst FIFA World Cup in the Middle East and Arab world.

As part of the festivities on 18 December 2020, the Community Engagement Division of the Su-preme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) partnered with vari-ous stakeholders, notably the Ministry of Culture and Sports and Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum (QOSM), to operate a Fan Zone outside the stadium.

A range of activities and cul-tural off erings were on off er both prior to kick-off and after the fi nal whistle. This included rov-ing and on-stage performances from various community groups including Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, Hungary, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Palestine, Su-dan and Uganda.

“What we wanted to achieve with the Fan Zone was to not only celebrate the opening of another World Cup venue, but also to highlight the diversity of Qatar’s many communities,” said the SC’s Stakeholder Rela-

tions Senior Manager, Khaled al-Suwaidi.

“Their excitement for Qatar 2022 has been unwavering, so it was great to see our local com-munities get involved and make a contribution to the festive at-mosphere we created on Nation-al Day,” he added.

Al-Suwaidi continued: “I would like to thank our com-munity groups, along with our valued stakeholders – particu-larly the Ministry of Culture and Sports and Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum – for their sup-port in organising the Fan Zone. After a diffi cult year for every-

one, it was great to see so many smiling faces enjoying the fes-tivities and marking the inaugu-ration of the fourth Qatar 2022 venue.”

The Ministry of Culture and Sports, tasked with nurturing a growing and inclusive cultural environment throughout Qatar, organised a series of activations at the Fan Zone. These included traditional activities such as folkloric games that form the backbone of a vibrant sports cul-ture in Qatar.

“The Ministry’s participa-tion was primarily through the Nomas Educational Center,

which set up a majlis that visi-tors had the chance to engage with, showcased a traditional musical instrument known as a rababa, and hosted falconry, along with a wide variety of traditional games,” said Aisha al-Mahmoud, Director of PR & Communications at the Minis-try of Culture and Sports.

“It was important for us to showcase Qatari culture at the country’s most prestigious foot-balling event on our National Day, an occasion that was made even more special with the inau-guration of Ahmad Bin Ali Sta-dium, which will host matches

during Qatar 2022,” she added.Additionally, the Minis-

try organised a robust display dedicated to the heritage of Al Rayyan SC, widely recognised as one of Qatar’s most widely sup-ported football teams. This in-cluded both video content and a photography exhibition.

The Fan Zone also featured a series of activations organised by QOSM, a cultural institu-tion dedicated to promoting the positive value of sport through showcasing the origins, de-velopment and signifi cance of sporting culture within Qatar and beyond.

A Qatar Museums initia-tive, QOSM activations at the Fan Zone included children’s activities that were inspired by the colours of the Olympic rings, a mini fi ve-a-side foot-ball match and live colouring of football jerseys with the emblem of Al Rayyan SC, the Qatar Stars League team that will make Ah-mad Bin Ali Stadium its home.

“We are delighted with the enthusiastic response to the ac-tivations organised by Qatar Ol-ympic & Sports Museum during the Amir Cup fi nal, particularly because they were all designed to inspire communities across

Qatar to lead an active lifestyle, which we see as one of the key legacies of hosting large sport-ing events like the Amir Cup and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022,” said Ahmad al-Namla, CEO of Qatar Museums.

The SC has continued to en-gage thousands of people in Qa-tar as the country’s FIFA World Cup preparations continue. De-spite the ongoing pandemic, a variety of programmes and ini-tiatives run by Community En-gagement have thrived in 2020 as Qatar aims to involve every-one on its World Cup journey.

qatar2022.qa

FOCUS

SPORT5Gulf Times

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Bucks ease past Magic, Wizards beat short-handed Sixers

NBA

‘We had enough guys tonight, but the other night, we were not happy with the way that went down’

AFPLos Angeles

Milwaukee star Giannis An-tetokounmpo shook off foul trouble to score 13 of his 22 points in the second half

Monday as the Bucks pulled away for a 121-99 NBA victory over the Magic in Or-lando.

Antetokounmpo, the two-time defend-ing NBA Most Valuable Player, showed no sign of the back spasms that forced him out of the Bucks win over Cleveland on Saturday, adding six rebounds, four as-sists and two blocked shots.

Khris Middleton scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and Bobby Portis chipped in 20 points off the bench as the Bucks notched their fi fth win in six games.

Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic led all scor-ers with 28 points and 13 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough in the fi rst meeting be-tween the teams since Milwaukee ousted Orlando in the fi rst round of the Eastern Conference playoff s in August.

Orlando forward Aaron Gordon threw down a dunk over Antetokounmpo early in the fourth to pull the Magic within 88-86. Antetokounmpo responded with a three-pointer and assisted on Portis’s shot from beyond the arc as the Bucks re-built their lead.

After Gordon’s dunk, the Bucks scored 22 of the next 24 points as they put the game out of reach.

“He’s growing in all ways and it was just two huge plays, because the momen-tum could’ve swung on the dunk,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said of Antetok-ounmpo’s late-game eff ort.

It was a tight fi nish in Portland, where CJ McCollum scored 30 points, includ-ing the game-winning pull-up jumper with 9.9 seconds remaining to give the host Trail Blazers a 112-111 victory over the Toronto Raptors. Toronto’s Pascal Siakam missed a fl oater in the closing seconds and the Blazers escaped with a victory after trailing by as many as 17 points.

The Blazers posted their third straight win, despite losing center Jusuf Nurkic to a left quadriceps contusion in the fi rst quarter.

In Charlotte, Gordon Hayward scored 28 of his game-high 34 points in the fi rst quarter to fuel the Hornets’ 109-88 vic-

tory over the New York Knicks. The Hor-nets notched their fourth straight victory – longer than any streak they put together last season. The Washington Wizards notched their fi rst home win of the sea-son, downing the Phoenix Suns 128-107.

With star guard Russell Westbrook ab-sent with a quadriceps injury, Bradley Beal led the Wizards with 34 points, eight re-bounds and nine assists.

Beal, who had totalled 101 points in his previous two games, was back in action after missing Saturday’s contest against Miami because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols.

But the ongoing pandemic was having an eff ect on the young season, with Mon-

day’s game between the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans postponed, along with a scheduled Tuesday clash between the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls. Some of the enforced absences were due to positive or inconclusive Covid-19 tests, and others to the league’s stringent contact tracing and isolation of possibly exposed players.

The Philadelphia 76ers, among the teams feeling the pinch with fi ve players sidelined by coronavirus protocols, en-dured a third straight defeat, 112-94 to the Hawks in Atlanta.

Hawks point guard Trae Young led all scorers with 26 points and Atlanta took a 32-point lead into the fourth quarter.

Philadelphia center Joel Embiid, back after missing one game with a tight back, scored 14 points with 11 rebounds but played less than four minutes in the third quarter and sat out the fourth.

Sixers coach Doc Rivers was still irked that his team had to take the court on Sat-urday with just seven fi t players between Covid protocols and late injuries.

“We had enough guys tonight, but the other night, we were not happy with the way that went down,” Rivers said, al-though he acknowledged that “No one is going to feel sorry for us.

“We’ve been in a tough spot with Cov-id. I have a sneaking feeling a lot of teams are going to have this problem.”

Covid-19 forces divisional shakeup, shrinks seasonAFPWashington

A National Hockey League season disrupt-ed by Covid-19 even be-fore the fi rst puck drops

will start today with defending champion Tampa Bay among the Stanley Cup contenders.

The campaign has been short-ened from 82 games per club to 56 and scheduled to run until May 8 in home arenas with play-off s to follow into July, bringing hope of returning to a normal October start for the 2021-22 season. Teams have been rea-ligned due to US-Canada border travel restrictions with all seven Canadian clubs in their own divi-sion and new eight-team break-downs in three US-only divisions.

The Dallas Stars have already had their fi rst four games post-poned, two at Florida and two at Tampa Bay in a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup Final, after six players and two staff mem-bers tested positive last week for Covid-19. And without specta-tors in the stands for most clubs over most of the season due

to the deadly virus, the league stands to lose more than $1 bil-lion, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday. “We’re coming back to play this season because we think it’s important for the game,” Bettman said. “It would be cheaper for us to shut the doors and not play.”

Bettman said revenue from spectators accounts for half of all NHL income. “Everybody is going to lose a lot of money to do this,” Bettman said.

Only Dallas, Florida and Arizona plan to have a limited number of spectators for games among the NHL’s 31 teams.

There has been an off -season break similar to normal since the Tampa Bay Lightning captured the Stanley Cup on September 28, beating Dallas four games to two in the best-of-seven NHL Final inside a Covid-19 bubble at Edmonton.

It ended four days shy of a year from the 2019-20 season opener, concluding a campaign halted March 12 by the pandemic with an expanded playoff s in August and September in quar-antine bubbles at Toronto and Edmonton that saw no Covid-19

positive tests. Regular season and pre-season NHL contests in Europe, outdoor contests in Minnesota and North Carolina and the NHL All-Star Game in Florida were all wiped out due to Covid-19 issues.

But Vegas will face Colorado and Boston will meet Philadel-phia outdoors at Lake Tahoe in February. The Lightning have the most wins, playoff wins and goals scored in the NHL over the past six seasons and fi gure to challenge for the Cup again with Steven Stamkos healthy af-ter missing most of Tampa Bay’s playoff run, Andrei Vasilevskiy solid at goaltender and Victor Hedman anchoring a strong de-fensive unit.

The divisional shakeup makes Dallas a division rival instead of a foe from the opposite confer-ence, with Carolina and Nash-ville also likely to challenge among Central rivals.

Washington’s Alex Ovechkin, whose 48 goals shared the NHL lead last season with Boston’s David Pastrnak, has topped the league in goals for seven of the past eight seasons and hopes the Capitals can repeat the Stanley

Cup title run of 2018 under new coach Peter Laviolette.

The Capitals also boast the NHL’s oldest and tallest player (6-foot-9, 2.06m) in 43-year-old defenseman Zdeno Chara and the NHL’s top assist produc-ing backliner in John Carlson, who set-up 60 goals last season while scoring 15.

Boston, which led the NHL with 44 wins last season, should be a factor as well with Pastrnak and a fast, physical lineup. Colo-rado, powered by 35-goal scorer Nathan MacKinnon, will be a favourite in the West along with the Vegas Golden Knights, who lost to Washington in the 2018 fi -nal in their inaugural season and reached the Western Conference fi nal last year before falling to Dallas. Hockey-mad Canada will enjoy a season unlike any other with its seven teams together playing only each other.

The Edmonton Oilers should be a force behind stars Con-nor McDavid and Leon Drai-saitl while the Toronto Maple Leafs, sparked by 47-goal scor-er Auston Matthews, fi gure to contend for Canadian bragging rights as well.

NHL

Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks drives to the net as Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic defends at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. (Getty Images/AFP)

NBA postpones games at Dallas and Chicago due to Covid-19AFPNew York

Two more NBA games were postponed by the league on Monday due to Covid-19 and con-

tract tracing issues, bringing the total to four in the virus-shortened 2020-21 season.

The New Orleans Pelicans game at Dallas on Monday and the Boston Celtics game Tues-day at Chicago were both de-layed over unspecifi ed health and safety protocol issues. The league also said it would meet with the National Basketball Players Association on Monday about possible modifi cations in the joint safety protocols.

There has been concern ex-pressed by coaches about the health and safety of players be-ing forced into playing unusu-ally high numbers of minutes due to depleted rosters being forced to take the court.

The latest postponements will mark three consecu-tive days of lost games for the NBA after Miami’s matchup on Sunday against the Celtics in Boston was called off because the Heat were unable to fi eld a minimum eight players due to Covid-19 issues.

The Celtics had been re-duced to the minimum eight players by virus issues with seven players missing due to the virus or contact tracing.

The Heat were still sched-uled to play on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, where the 76ers had only a minimum eight available players, just seven of them healthy, for a home loss Saturday to Denver.

The South Florida Sun-Sen-tinel reported that the Heat’s available players would travel from Boston to Philadelphia while players deemed at risk through contact tracing would be fl own to Florida to quaran-tine.

The fi rst NBA game to be

postponed this season due to Covid-19 issues was on De-cember 23 between Oklahoma City at Houston.

Dallas has three players listed as out due to the NBA Covid-19 protocols – Jalen Brunson, Josh Richardson and Dorian Finney-Smith – and Maxi Kleber listed as question-able for the same reason.

Scott Tomlin, the Maver-icks’ vice president of bas-ketball communications, told the Dallas Morning News that the team would have had at least eight players available on Monday, but the league chose to postpone the contest “to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and other personnel” as contact tracing continues.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said before the season started on December 22 that the league, which completed the disrupted 2019-20 sea-son in a quarantine bubble in Orlando, Florida, expected disruptions as it forged ahead in teams’ home markets with coronavirus still surging.

“We do anticipate there will be bumps in the road along the way,” Silver said in December, adding that’s why the sched-ule for only the fi rst half of the season had been released.

“We know it’s possible we may have to reschedule games along the way,” he said.

Philadelphia coach Doc Riv-ers said Saturday he trusted the procedures the league had put in place to limit spread of Covid-19, but he said losing so many players to contact trac-ing posed a danger to those remaining with increased min-utes on the fl oor, wear and tear and the push to perhaps play through injury.

“That’s long-term health with the accumulation of games,” he said. “So I’m ac-tually more concerned about that than I am actually about Covid.”

FOCUS

RESULTS

Atlanta 112-94 Philadelphia

Portland 112-111 Toronto

Sacramento 127-122 Indiana

Charlotte 109-88 New York

Memphis 101-91 Cleveland

Milwaukee 121-99 Orlando

Washington 128-107 Phoenix

Report: Bryant subject of Cubs-Blue Jays talks

Kris Bryant has been the subject of trade talks between the Chicago Cubs and Toronto Blue Jays, MLB Network reported.Bryant, 29, has also drawn interest from the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Washington Nation-als, according to previous reports.The Cubs are undergoing an off season makeover with slugger Kyle Schwarber non-tendered and right-handed ace Yu Darvish sent to the San Diego Padres in a trade. Team president Theo Epstein is also gone with Jed Hoyer now the president of baseball operations.A significant pay raise is ex-pected for Bryant. He made $18.6 million in 2020 and

is a fourth-year arbitration eligible player after three consecutive one-year deals to avoid arbitration.But a trade could be compli-cated without a new contract agreement since Bryant is scheduled to become a free agent at the end of the 2021 season.Bryant was the National League MVP in 2016 and is a three-time All-Star. He has played third base and both corner outfield positions for the Cubs.A previous MLB Network report linking the Nation-als to the Cubs in Bryant trade discussions indicated Chicago was zeroed in on top Washington pitching pros-pect Jackson Rutledge. (Reuters)

In this file photo taken on July 12, 2020, aerial view over the 17th green at Edgewood Tahoe South course during the final round of the American Century Championship in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Two National Hockey League regular-season games will be played next month on an outdoor rink on the south shore of Lake Tahoe, the league announced on Monday. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

FOOTBALL6 Gulf Times

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Man United v Liverpool highlights FA Cup fourth round

Aguero out for up to 10 days due to quarantine

Neymar set to return for PSG in ‘special game’ for Pochettino

Fulham boss Parker says Spurs fi xture switch scandalous

SPOTLIGHT

FOCUS

ROUND-UP

PREMIER LEAGUE

ReutersLondon

Manchester United will host Liverpool in the fourth round of the FA Cup after the two arch rivals were drawn to-

gether on Monday, with the game set to be played a week after their Premier League summit clash.

The two sides, who are both top of the Premier League table and go head-to-head in the league on Sunday, meet in the cup for the fi rst time since Dirk Kuyt scored a late winner as Liverpool beat United 2-1 in January 2012.

United have not beaten Liverpool since March 2018, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer yet to taste victory against the Anfi eld side in four attempts as manager, once as Cardiff City boss. The winners will clash with either West Ham United or League One (third tier) side Doncaster Rovers

after the Hammers eked out a 1-0 win at National League (fi fth tier) outfi t Stock-port County on Monday. Holders Arsenal will be on the road and play either South-ampton or Shrewsbury Town, with the third round tie yet to be decided after the game was called off when Shrewsbury re-ported COVID-19 cases in their squad.

The FA said there will be a meeting of its Professional Game Board this week to decide on the fate of the Southampton v Shrewsbury Town fi xture. Although a ris-ing number of Covid-19 infections — 36 in the last round of tests in the Premier League alone — has forced many to call for a break in the season, there is no let-up of fi xtures as authorities look to complete all fi xtures by May.

Manchester City travel to fourth tier side Cheltenham Town while Tottenham Hotspur, who beat eighth tier Marine, travel to second tier Wycombe Wander-ers. Chelsea host Championship side Luton Town while Sheffi eld Untied, who

recorded their fi rst win of the eason at Bristol Rovers in the third round, host Plymouth Argyle.

Fulham take on Burnley in an all-Pre-mier League matchup while League Two side Crawley Town, who upset Leeds United, are away at Bournemouth. The draw for the fi fth round was also made on Monday, with the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ avoiding match-ups against each other should they advance.

FOURTH ROUND DRAW

(to be played weekend of Jan. 23-24)

Cheltenham Town v Manchester City; Bournemouth v Crawley Town; Swansea City v Nottingham Forest; Manches-ter United v Liverpool; Southampton/Shrewsbury Town v Arsenal; Barnsley v Norwich City; Chorley v Wolverhampton Wanderers; Millwall v Bristol City; Bright-on & Hove Albion v Blackpool; Wycombe

Wanderers v Tottenham Hotspur; Fulham v Burnley; Sheff ield United v Plymouth Argyle; Chelsea v Luton Town; West Ham United v Doncaster Rovers; Brentford v Leicester City; Everton v Sheff ield Wednesday

FIFTH ROUND DRAW

(to be played week starting Feb. 8)

Fulham or Burnley v Bournemouth or Crawley; Manchester United or Liverpool v West Ham United or Doncaster Rovers; Sheff ield United or Plymouth Argyle v Millwall or Bristol City; Chorley or Wolves v Southampton/Shrewsbury Town or Arsenal; Barnsley or Norwich City v Chel-sea or Luton Town; Everton or Sheff ield Wednesday v Wycombe Wanderers or Tottenham Hotspur; Swansea or Notting-ham Forest v Cheltenham or Manchester City; Brentford or Leicester v Brighton or Blackpool

Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero will be out for up to 10 days because the

Argentine striker is still isolating after coming into close contact with someone who tested posi-tive for Covid-19, manager Pep Guardiola said yesterday.

Aguero was expected to start in last weekend’s FA Cup third-round tie against second-tier Birmingham City but did not feature in the matchday squad as City won 3-0. City’s record scorer has played nine games in all competitions this season after missing the start of the campaign following knee surgery. Guardio-la side face Brighton today in the Premier League.

City, who are fi fth in the table with 29 points from 15 games, have midfi elder Raheem Sterling available after he was left out of the last game due to lack of match fi tness, but defenders Aymeric Laporte and Nathan Ake are still injured. Defender Eric Garcia and midfi elders Adrian Bernabe and Cole Palmer are still in isolation, Guardiola said.

HUESCA AND ALAVES SACK COACHES

La Liga’s bottom side Huesca

dismissed coach Michel Sanchez yesterday after a run of just one win in 18 games, while Alaves sacked Pablo Machin with the club barely above the relegation zone. Huesca have lost four of their last fi ve matches to fall six points adrift of safety following their promotion to Spain’s top division for just the second time.

Alaves parted ways with Machin following a poor series of results to leave the club in 16th place and only two points clear of the bottom three. Machin over-saw a 2-1 victory over champions Real Madrid in November, but his team has won just once in seven games since and only four times in the league all season. Alaves appointed Abelardo Fernandez as Machin’s successor.

AFPParis

Neymar is in line to return for Paris Saint-Germain after four weeks on the sidelines in today’s Champions Tro-

phy game against bitter rivals Mar-seille. “Neymar is available and will be in the squad. We will decide tomorrow (Wednesday) if he plays or starts on the bench,” PSG coach Mauricio Pochet-tino said at a virtual press conference ahead of the game.

The world’s most expensive player has not played since being stretchered off with an ankle injury at the end of PSG’s Ligue 1 defeat to Lyon on De-cember 13, missing his side’s last fi ve matches as a result. Neymar was one of three PSG players sent off in an ugly ending to PSG’s most recent meeting with Marseille, who fi nished with nine men.

The Brazilian later accused Marseille defender Alvaro Gonzalez of racism, al-though in the end no action was taken due to a lack of evidence.

Today’s game is just PSG’s third since former Tottenham Hotspur coach Po-chettino was appointed as the succes-sor to the sacked Thomas Tuchel, and off ers the chance for him to win his fi rst piece of silverware with the Qatar-owned club.

The Champions Trophy is the French equivalent of a Super Cup, usually contested at the start of the season by the league champions and French Cup winners.

With PSG winning both last season, Marseille have been selected as their opponents as the Ligue 1 runners-up.

Played overseas in the last 10 years, including most recently in China, this season’s edition was delayed because of the raging coronavirus pandemic and is taking place today in less ex-otic conditions behind closed doors

in Lens in northern France.Nevertheless Pochettino, who played

for PSG, called it a “special match, but winning the game almost matters more than winning a trophy at the end of it”. His fi rst game at the helm ended in a 1-1 draw with Saint-Etienne last week, be-fore he oversaw a fi rst win as PSG beat Brest 3-0 on Saturday to leave them a point behind Ligue 1 leaders Lyon at the campaign’s halfway stage.

While Neymar returns, young full-back Colin Dagba on Tuesday became the latest Paris player to test positive for Covid-19 and has joined team-mates Rafi nha and Thilo Kehrer in hav-ing to isolate. Marseille, coached by Andre Villas-Boas, beat PSG 1-0 in that last, fi ery meeting in the league in Sep-tember, their fi rst win over their great-est rivals in nine years.

“Andre and I both coached Totten-ham. I have great aff ection for him and we get on well with each other,” Po-chettino said of his opposite number.

ReutersLondon

Fulham manager Scott Parker has criticised the Premier League for re-arranging his side’s game at Tottenham Hotspur for to-

day, giving him only 48 hours to prepare his players. Fourth-placed Spurs were scheduled to face Aston Villa today but that match was postponed after a Cov-id-19 outbreak forced the closure of the Midlands club’s training ground.

Instead, Tottenham’s home game with Fulham, itself postponed two hours be-fore kickoff on Dec. 30 after a Covid out-break amongst the Fulham squad, has been squeezed in. While former Spurs player Parker said there was talk of the switch last weekend, it was only con-fi rmed on Monday. “To confi rm that on Monday morning is scandalous. You’re constantly working out well in advance,” he told reporters.

Fulham beat Queens Park Rangers in the FA Cup third round on Saturday and Parker said his team selection for that game might have changed had he known they faced Jose Mourinho’s high-fl ying Tottenham side a few days later.

“The decisions I would have made with QPR, or the players who are just com-ing back. We’ve had it tough with Covid. That’s quickly changing Monday morn-ing. It’s madness really,” he said.

Mourinho off ered little sympathy for his Fulham counterpart when asked about it yesterday. “Are you serious? They had 48 hours to prepare for this game. Look, I had the news that I wasn’t going to play them two hours before the game started,” he said in reference to the decision to postpone the original game against Fulham.

Mourinho said clubs needed to be fl exi-ble in the midst of the Covid-19 pandem-ic if they wanted to complete the season. “In the end you have to play 19 matches at home and 19 away and two matches against every team. If it helps the Premier League to end the season properly it’s a solution that we all have to accept as a positive solution.”

Parker, who was given little game time

by Mourinho while he was a player at Chelsea, said the Portuguese’s gripe did not compare with his own dilemma. “Re-garding being told the (original) game was called off . It’s an irrelevance. It’s a disap-pointment,” he said.

“To have a game called on with 48 hours notice... I don’t want to get into it (as) regards Jose but you plan what you do in the week. Tottenham knew they had a

fi xture in. Jose’s selection (against Marine in the FA Cup on Sunday) suggested that. They’ve planned.”

Several Fulham players were forced to isolate after testing positive for Covid-19 and Parker said that while they were not showing ill-eff ects, pitching them straight into a big league fi xture was not ideal. “Obviously a week, if this game didn’t exist, a week of work is some ask

but to think we chuck a game bang in the middle of the week is another story,” he said. “My players are fi ne and will be fi ne. I sit angry because I don’t think it’s right. I believe we’ll give Spurs a game but I think it’s wrong. The problem is the time we’ve been told. “It’s beyond belief really.”

Third-bottom Fulham were due to host Chelsea in the league on Friday but that has now been pushed back to Saturday.

Spurs were scheduled to face Aston Villa today but that match has been postponed

Madrid: Despite the concerns about a crammed fixture calen-dar in a season badly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, Spain is going ahead with its four-team Super Cup this week as Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao provide the opposition for Barcelona and Real Madrid.

However, after being taken to Saudi Arabia in January 2020, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) is organising this year’s version in Andalusia, with the final on Sunday at La Cartuja in Seville. From the shores of the Red Sea back to Spain, which has been battered in recent days by Storm Filomena deliver-ing the country’s worst snowfall in decades as well as brutally cold temperatures.

Barcelona play Real Sociedad in the first semi-final today in Cordoba, before trophy holders Madrid face Athletic Bilbao in Malaga tomorrow, with the winners remaining in southern Spain to contest Sunday’s final. All of the games will be behind closed doors. In ordinary times the RFEF would not have given up on its controversial money-spinning Saudi venture, after initially agreeing a 120mn euro ($146mn) three-year deal to play an expanded four-team com-petition in the Middle Eastern Kingdom.

That agreement also included the option of three more years, but the lack of fans allowed in Saudi stadiums led the Federa-tion to renegotiate its contract and bring the tournament back home. The move abroad fol-lowed in the footsteps of Italy and France, who have taken their own equivalents of the Super Cup — between the previ-ous season’s league champions and domestic cup winners — to foreign shores in recent years.

This time the competition sees reigning La Liga cham-pions Madrid and runners-up Barcelona joined by the two

finalists from last season’s Copa del Rey, an all-Basque final which was postponed due to the health crisis and has still not been played.

That means current La Liga leaders Atletico Madrid are not involved, while Real will not go into their semi-final in the best shape after a build-up impacted by the winter storm. Zinedine Zidane’s team were left stuck in the northern city of Pamplona for three nights due to the weather, leaving on Monday after drawing 0-0 with Osasuna on Saturday in a game which Zi-dane and his players felt should not have gone ahead.

“We are not puppets who should have to play all the time. We made the eff ort but we need to think about the travel involved too,” complained goal-keeper Thibaut Courtois.

Instead of returning to the capital, they flew straight to Malaga to prepare for the Super Cup. Athletic, meanwhile, had their game away to Atletico in Madrid postponed because of the snow — their plane circled the sky awaiting permission to land before being forced to return home.

Their hope is to be able to play their Basque neighbours in the final on Sunday before they eventually clash again in the de-layed Copa del Rey showpiece. “We are not used to winning trophies and it would be special and unforgettable,” admitted their Spanish international centre-back Inigo Martinez.

Before that game Barcelona will hope to continue their perfect start to 2021 against a Real Sociedad side who were top of La Liga but have won just one of their last nine league games. “We are close to a first title of the season and we come into this full of excitement because we are on a good run,” said Barca midfielder Sergio Busquets.

Real Madrid defend Super Cup repatriated from

Saudi to storm-hit Spain

Fulham manager Scott Parker. (Reuters)

SPORT7Gulf Times

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Sports nutrition supplements Taskforce holds fi rst meeting

Ozil eyes Turkey or US move as he nears Arsenal exit

Commercial Bank CHI Al Shaqab to bring world’s best to Qatar

SPOTLIGHT

FOOTBALL

EQUESTRIAN

The recently-created sports nu-trition supplements Taskforce held its fi rst meeting (by vide-oconference) to consider the

impact of the current situation and the health of athletes by assessing the risks of use of sports nutrition supplements by Qatari based athletes as well as rec-reational athletes.

The committee, which was held at the request of the CEO of Aspetar Dr Abdulaziz Jaham al-Kuwari, included many prominent fi gures from various sectors such as Jassim al-Buenain, Sec-retary General of QOC, Nasser al-Saad, Director Qatar Anti-doping Commis-sion, Abdulrahman al-Dosary, Adviser to Minister of Culture and Sports (Min-istry of Culture and Sport), Dr Aisha al-Ansari (Director Pharmacy and Drug Control, MoPH), Shaima al-Khaldi (Director Scientifi c Support, Aspetar) and Dr Daniel Kings (Director Clinical Projects, Aspetar).

Many topics related to the consump-tion of sports nutrition supplements and Qatar regulations were deliberated during the meeting. Consequently, sev-eral signifi cant decisions were made for further discussion on this topic. Sports and health local authorities expressed their concerns at this challenging time aiming to proactively safeguard the health of all sports practitioners, and to safeguard public health in general.

The objectives of this high-level taskforce are to review and propose changes to the current practices in the areas of importation, classifi cation, quality control certifi cation and retail access to safer sports supplements in the state of Qatar. The goal of these be-ing to create a roadmap that will ulti-mately protect the health of all athletes

in the Qatar community who consume these supplements.

The task force group would activate various initiatives outlined in a co-operative way prior to Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup to safeguard, educate ath-letes and the physically active public community who take sports supple-ments in Qatar.

Dr Abdulaziz Jaham al-Kuwari, As-petar CEO, said: “With a mandate by Amiri decree to protect the health of athletes, for several years Aspetar has

embarked on a mission to understand and improve the knowledge and prac-tices on sports supplements use in Qa-tar. Most recently, this has included in-struction to lead a national task force on improving access to safer sports sup-plementation in the State of Qatar. The fi rst session of this taskforce was held this week”.

Jassim al-Buainain Secretary Gen-eral of Qatar Olympic Committee, said: “As a former athlete, I appreciate and support this eff ort. For professional

athletes, this does not constitute an obstacle, because they are aware about consuming supplements and we edu-cate them continuously, but it seems diff erent for the public that fl ock to the gym every day. At QOC, our crucial role is to promote health awareness related campaigns on the sidelines of champi-onships and community events. I think it’s the optimal time to discuss all ideas and have a proposal to be executed as a binding law will help protecting our athletes”.

Commenting about the proposal, the Ministry of culture and sports rep-resentative, Abdul Rahman al-Dosary, said: “our concerns in Qatar is the community and people who practising sports in the gymnasiums, number of gyms increased dramatically, in 2014 there were 86 in Qatar only, now there are over than 500 centres in the country. There are many people who consumes supplements in these gyms without supervision and control over what has been sold to them and without aware-ness of their impacts and best way to use, which worried us.

He added: “Of course, the Ministry of culture and Sports gives all the support for the success of this project, we seek to raise the awareness about the associ-ated risks, and to issue regulations that control their circulation and sale.”

Nasser al-Saad, Director Qatar Anti-doping Commission, specifi ed that the use of supplements has increased dra-matically, some are taking information from untrusted people in the gym, and our role is to educate athletes. “We are working with the Qatar Olympic Com-mittee on the issue of doping control and we will provide you with useful statistics and data at the upcoming meetings.”

At the session a number of areas were identifi ed and agreed on to be more closely reviewed by the panel of partners and Dr Abdulaziz al-Kuwari stressed that the project is a national project and not only concerns those parties present-ed at this meeting. Over a series of ses-sions, a full implementation plan will be developed for discussion on these areas. Upon refi nement and approval, changes should then be implemented ahead of 2022. Further announcements will be made accordingly.

AFPLondon

Arsenal misfi t Mesut Ozil has revealed he plans to play his football in Turkey or the United States when he fi -

nally leaves the Premier League club. The German has not played for Mikel Arteta’s side since March last year and has just six months left on his contract at the Emirates.

He dropped plenty of hints about his next destination in a Twitter question and answer session, with Fenerbahce and DC United reported to be among the teams leading the chase for his sig-nature. The 32-year-old World Cup winner was asked if he would continue his career when he left Arsenal, whom e joined in 2013. “I defi nitely will,” he replied. “There are two countries I want to play football in before I retire: Turkey and USA. If I went to Turkey, I could only go to Fenerbahce.”

Ozil, the highest-paid player in Arse-nal’s history, said he was a Fenerbahce fan when growing up in Germany. “Eve-ry German-Turkish person supports a Turkish team when they grow up in Ger-many,” he said. “And mine was Fener-bahce. Fenerbahce is like Real Madrid in Spain. The biggest club in the country.”

Arteta made the decision not to se-lect Ozil when the Premier League re-sumed in June after being halted early in the coronavirus pandemic. Before football was suspended, the former Real

Madrid playmaker had been a regular under the Spaniard but has failed to fea-ture since and was not included in the club’s Premier League or Europa League squads for the fi rst half of the current campaign. “There have been many ups and downs so far, but all in all I’ve never regretted my decision to join Ar-senal,” Ozil insisted. “I’ve enjoyed that time a lot and I’ve thought we’re really on a very positive way,” he added.”But after the break things unfortunately changed.”

Al Shaqab, a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), will organ-ise and host the 8th edition of Commercial Bank CHI Al

Shaqab Presented by Longines, a pre-mier event on the world’s equestrian calendar.

Al Shaqab’s signature equestrian competition, which provides an ex-hilarating mix of top-class equestrian sport and fun-fi lled family entertain-ment, will take place from February 25-27, 2021, at the Longines Arena at Al Shaqab. The three-day event will once again bring the world’s best riders and horses to Qatar to compete in the Olympic disciplines of Showjumping, Dressage, and Para Dressage.

Created in 2013, CHI Al Shaqab is one of fi ve CHI competitions worldwide, and the fi rst and only equestrian event of its kind in the Middle East and Asia region. Commercial Bank is the Title Sponsor of the event, while Longines is the Presenting Partner and ExxonMobil is the Main Sponsor.

Besides ensuring an action-packed competition, CHI Al Shaqab also of-fers a range of entertaining and educa-tional activities for adults and children in its spectacular Festival Area. CHI Al Shaqab will be one of two prestigious international back-to-back equestrian events taking place at Al Shaqab, and will be followed a week later by the sea-son opener of the 2021 Longines Global Champions Tour.

Khalifa al-Attiya, Vice Chairman, Supreme Organising Committee Com-mercial Bank CHI Al Shaqab Presented by Longines, and Executive Director, Al Shaqab, said: “CHI Al Shaqab sup-ports Qatar’s National Vision 2030, and Al Shaqab’s organisation of such a key international event bears testament to Qatar’s position as a global sporting destination. CHI Al Shaqab will show-case Al Shaqab’s standing as an eques-trian centre of excellence with world-class facilities, while the entertainment on off er will help provide a memorable experience for all spectators.

“Al Shaqab is proud that CHI Al Shaqab has become a landmark annual event for the local community. The Arab world has a very rich equestrian heritage, and through events such as this, Al Shaqab preserves and perpetu-

ates that aspect of Qatari tradition and culture.”

Joseph Abraham, Group Chief Ex-ecutive Offi cer, Commercial Bank, said: “We are pleased to be the Title Spon-sor for the second year for this premier

event on the world’s equestrian calen-dar. Commercial Bank is committed to supporting Qatar’s vision to be an in-ternational sporting hub and we recog-nise the importance of sports in Qatar’s economic and social development.”

In view of the current Covid-19 pan-demic, the Ministry of Public Health’s precautionary measures will be strictly enforced to ensure the safety and well-being of participants, equestrian fans, and all who are involved with the event.

Ticketing information, including details about exclusive VIP off erings, will be made available soon on the Al Shaqab website (www.alshaqab.com) and social media channels.

Since its establishment in 1992, Al Shaqab’s vision was to build on Qatar’s Arabian horse heritage and be a leading global centre for equine professionals, while providing an engaging experi-ence for the community. Global lead-ership has not only meant preserving, improving, and promoting the Arabian horse breed, but also encouraging the community in this unique, traditional cultural sport.

Today, Al Shaqab’s impressive facili-ties, which are distinctively designed in the shape of a horseshoe, cover 980,000 square meters. With a state-of-the-art Main Arena comprising both an indoor and outdoor venue capable of holding over 5,000 spectators, Al Shaqab is part of Qatar’s growing reputation on the world stage that showcases its ability to host major international sports event at the highest level.

Al Shaqab’s signature equestrian competition will take place from February 25-27 at the Longines Arena at Al Shaqab

Zurich: Global football FIFA has failed to win access to case files compiled by the special prosecutor named last year to handle an investiga-tion into its president Gianni Infantino and his dealings with Switzerland’s former at-torney general. Special pros-ecutor Stefan Keller in July opened criminal proceedings over undocumented meet-ings Infantino and former top prosecutor Michael Lauber held while Lauber’s off ice in-vestigated alleged corruption in world football.

Infantino and Lauber, who has since resigned, have de-nied any wrongdoing. FIFA’s ethics committee cleared Infantino in August of any code breaches. In a verdict re-leased yesterday, the Federal Criminal Court rejected FIFA’s request for access to files in the investigation as a third party directly involved in the proceedings.

FIFA, which complained that opening a criminal case against its president had damaged its reputation, had argued that Keller was unauthorised to start such proceedings and appealed against his decision to deny FIFA’s bid to see case files.

In a statement, FIFA said Keller had given “a misleading impression that something illegal or untoward may have happened when the FIFA President met with the former Attorney General of Switzer-land. Any such suggestion or implication is entirely reject-ed.” It said neither FIFA nor Infantino had been informed about alleged wrongdoing nor had the FIFA president been given any opportunity to respond. “FIFA and the FIFA President will, of course, con-tinue to cooperate with this investigation, assuming they are ever given the chance to do so,” it added.

Infantino was elected in 2016 to clean up FIFA after it became embroiled in a cor-ruption scandal.

Court shuts FIFA out of case

investigating Infantino

HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad bin al-Thani, Chairman, Supreme Organising Committee, with the podium winners of the last year's Commercial Bank CHI AL Shaqab Presented by Longines.

Topics related to the consumption of sports nutrition supplements and Qatar regulations were deliberated during the meeting.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

GULF TIMES SPORT

Bounedjah hits hat-trick as Al Sadd sail past Al Duhail

QNB STARS LEAGUE

By Sports ReporterDoha

Former world No.12 Viktor Troicki is one step away from reaching the main draw of the 2021 Australian Open after dispatching American

Ulises Blanch in straight sets 7-5, 6-3 yes-terday in the second round of the men’s qualifi ers being held at the Khalifa Interna-tional Tennis & Squash Complex in Doha.

The 34-year-old Serbian, who won the inaugural ATP Cup in 2020, becoming the fi rst player in history to win all three ma-jor team competitions (Davis Cup in 2010 and World Team Cup in 2009 and 2012), dispatched his 246-ranked opponent in 94 minutes.

Troicki won 89 percent of fi rst serves and 65 percent of the second in the highly-en-tertaining encounter as he booked his ticket against Germany’s Cedrik-Marcel Stebe in today’s fi nal round match. Stebe, ranked 126, had ended the run of wildcard entrant Rinky Hijikata of Australia, winning 6-4, 6-2 on Court A earlier in the day.

Should Troicki, a quarter-fi nalist at the 2008 French Open, overcome the 30-year-old German in the fi nal round, it would be his 12th appearance in Melbourne since 2008. He had only missed the fi rst Grand Slam of the year in 2014 while serving a doping ban.

In the other highlights of the day, Aus-tralia’s Dane Sweeny, a wildcard entrant, sailed past USA’s Denis Kudla, the No. 4 seed, to book the fi nal day ticket against Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky who defeated Australia’s Jason Kubler 7-6, 6-4.

A fourth Australian Open appearance is looking very likely for the No 5-seed Taro Daniel of Japan after the 27-year-old Flor-ida resident knocked out German Maximil-ian Marterer, ranked 209, 6-3, 6-4. With the win, Daniel secured a fi nal round ticket against fast-serving Elias Ymer of Sweden, who staged a comeback to win 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 against the 27th-seeded Marc-Andrea Huesler of Switzerland.

Seventh-seed Damir Dzumhur, who

made into the third round in Melbourne in 2014 and 2018, meanwhile, trounced Ger-many’s Julian Lenz 6-2, 6-2 in one hour and eight minutes to advance into the last day of the four-day event in Doha.

Lenz broke his opponent’s serve only once, while the Bosnian player, on the other hand, managed to do it fi ve times. Dzum-hur, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s No. 1 player, achieved 60 percent of fi rst serves, com-mitted two double faults and won 18 service points on his way to victory.

The 28-year-old Bosnian, ranked 118, is set to face Belgian Kimmer Coppejans, who defeated the 31-seeded Egyptian Mohamed Safwat in straight-sets, tomorrow for one of the 16 slots available from the qualifi ers for the main draw in Melbourne.

Meanwhile, some upsets were recorded on the day with three seeded players – Slov-

enia’s Blaz Rola (seeded 32), Lorenzo Giusti-no of Italy (29th seed), and Spain’s Carlos Taberner (22nd seed) – crashing out of the tournament. While Rola suff ered a 2-6, 7-6, 3-6 defeat from the hands of Frenchman Mathias Bourgue, Giustino and Taberner were defeated in straight-sets by Croatia’s Borna Gojo and Dustin Brown of Germany respectively.

In the other match of the day, tourna-ment’s second-seed Hugo Dellien of Bo-livia withstood a second set rally from 232-ranked Andrew Harris of Australia to post a straight-sets 6-4, 7-6 win in two hours and 3 minutes on Court A to book a fi nal round clash against Spain’s Carlos Al-caraz – the 21-seed. A total of 128 players participated in the 2021 Australian Open men’s qualifi ers which ends today. Sixteen main draw slots are up for grabs in Doha.

QNADoha

The Executive Offi ce of Qatar Football Asso-ciation (QFA) discussed during its meeting yes-

terday the developments related to bid fi le to host the AFC Asian Cup 2027. President of the Qa-tar Football Association (QFA) HE Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani chaired the meeting in the presence of all members.

The QFA President was joined by Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Mu-hannadi, QFA Vice President, Sheikh Ahmed bin Hamad al-Thani, Hani Talib Ballan and Ahmed Abdulaziz al-Buainain, Ibrahim al-Mohannadi, Abdul

Rahman al-Qahtani, and Man-sour al-Ansari, QFA Secretary General, at the Executive Meet-ing.

The meeting discussed in de-tail a series of matters directly falling under QFA purview, in-cluding a detailed report on the tournaments hosted by QFA in the last year and matters related to 2020 AFC Champions League matches held for East and West Zones.

The QFA President was ap-prised of AFC praise made public by AFC President Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim on Qatar’s timely help in hosting the two separate month-long events in Sept-Oct and Nov-Dec. The AFC presi-dent had specially lauded QFA and the state authorities directly responsible for delivering fl aw-

less events in times of Covid-19 pandemic.

The meeting also discussed the report on the fi nal match of the Amir Cup that coincided with the celebration of Qatar’s National Day on December 18.

The Amir Cup fi nal was staged at the brand new Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium, one of the venues for FIFA World Cup 2022 to be held in Qatar.

At the end of the meeting, QFA President expressed his thanks and appreciation to all entities and institutions operating in the country, especially the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Interior, for ‘the great eff ort and the work they did with the utmost dedication, sincerity and love in raising Qatar’s profi le in world football’.

By Sport ReporterDoha

Leaders Al Sadd took a giant step towards QNB Stars League title after Baghdad Bounedjah’s hat-trick powered them to a 3-1 win

over Al Duhail in a marquee clash yes-terday. At the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadi-um, hosts Al Sadd went a goal down in the sixth minute after Almoez Ali gave the holders Al Duhail the lead from the penalty spot in the 6th minute.

But thereafter it was Bounedjah show all the way as the Algerian poacher showed why he is the best striker in Qatar’s top fl ight. The striker scored in the 14th, 50th and 87th minutes as the Wolves remained unbeaten in the league to open up an 11-point lead over bitter rivals Al Duhail, who are second with 27 points

Al Sadd head coach Xavi Hernan-dez was delighted with the result. “We played an amazing game and I am proud of the performance of all the players. It was a very good performance and we managed to come back after score thrice after conceding a goal,” the Spaniard said.

“The team’s positive and collective spirit was the basis for this impor-tant win. We were the better side. We changed the dynamics of Qatari foot-ball and we have always been the best. We must continue working. We haven’t achieved anything yet and we must maintain the lead at the top of the table until the end,” he added.

The game between the top sides in the league began with entertaining action from the beginning, as Al Sadd threat-ened the Duhail goal early on. In just the third minute of the match, Al Sadd keeper Meshaal Barsham stepped out of his box to kill a long cross from the Al Duhail half. Barsham attempted to clear the ball, but hit new recruit Michael Olunga with his shot. To the relief of Al Sadd fans, the ball slipped away from the empty goalmouth with keeper Bar-sham in no position to run back to his position.

Two minutes later, Al Duhail stunned Al Sadd fans. Almoez, after receiving a long cross, charged towards the Al Sadd box with Abdelkarim Hassan giving hot chase. Just as Almoez sneaked into the box, Abdelkarim’s tackle from the back saw the Qatar national team star fall down. Referee Abdulhadi al-Ruaile, after seeking VAR assistance, pointed to the spot and the penalty was easily converted by Almoez.

In the 12th minute, Hassan al-Hay-dous curled in a spectacular shot from the edge of the box, but Al Duhail keep-er Salah Zakaria blocked the shot with closed fi sts. Two minutes later, Al Sadd struck back.

Bounedjah, after receiving a cross from al-Haydous on the fl ank, hood-winked Ismail Mohammed as he en-tered the Al Duhail box from the fl ank. Just as Al Duhail’s Mehdi Bena-tia charged ahead to block the move, Bounedjah successfully worked on an acute angle to slip the ball past the out-stretched left hand of the keeper.

In the 23rd minute, Paulo Edmilson of Al Duhail volleyed on a short cross from Almoez inside the Al Sadd box, but his shot was blocked by keeper Bar-sham. Three minutes later, Al Duhail’s Eduardo Rodrigues delivered a right-footed shot from the edge of the box, but his shot was parried away by the keeper.

In the 33rd minute, former Arsenal player Santiago Cazorla hit the Al Du-hail crossbar off a direct free-kick as Al Sadd mounted relentless attacks. Al Sadd’s Nam Tae-Hee also impressed with his quick moves in the fi rst half. In the 36th minute, the Korean interna-tional unleashed a swinging shot from the edge of the box, but Al Duhail keep-er caught the ball.

Maintaining their attacking game from the fi rst half, Al Sadd jumped to a 2-1 lead early in the second half. After a goalmouth melee, Bounedjah showed great alertness to tap the ball from close range in the 50th minute. With three Al Duhail defenders blocking his path, Bounedjah still managed to tap the ball into the top of the net.

In the 61st minute, Olunga, inside the Al Sadd box, swivelled and let go off a shot that sailed above the crossbar. Six minutes later, al-Haydous curled in a free-kick, but his snapheader from inside the box was a little wayward.

In what could be described unfortu-nate, al-Haydos missed an easy chance to score in the 78th minute. Bounedjah, under pressure from Al Duhail keeper, fl icked back a cross to unmarked al-Haydous standing inside the box with acres of space to shoot the ball into the net. But the Al Sadd star’s hurriedly-taken shot missed the target from in-side the box.

Three minutes from time, Bounedjah picked up a neat cross from substitute Akram Afi f before charging into the Al Duhail box. As the Al Duhail keeper left his position to kill the move, Bounedjah calmly slotted the ball home to com-

plete his hat-trick in the second suc-cessive match.

In another match, Al Rayyan beat the high-fl ying Qatar SC 2-1. Al Rayy-an’s goals were scored by Yohan Boli (45+1) and Shojae Khalilzadeh (54th minute). Qatar SC’s reply came through Youcef Belaili (79th minute). The Li-ons climbed to fi fth in the table with 22 points, while Qatar SC stay at third place with 23 points.

Earlier, Al Sailiya defeated Al Kharaitiyat 2-0 at the Al Ahli Stadium. Abdulqadir Ilyas (27th minute) and Mohanad Ali (51st minute) scored the goals as Al Sailiya took their tally to 18 points and are eighth.

Bottom-placed Al Kharaitiyat re-mained on six points following their 12th defeat, the worst record by any side in the 12-team tournament.

‘We played an amazing game and I am proud of the performance of all the players. It was a very good performance’

Troicki seals place in fi nal round QFA Executive Offi ce discusses developments related to bid fi le to host AFC Asian Cup 2027

TENNIS SPOTLIGHT

President of the Qatar Football Association (QFA) HE Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani (centre) chaired the meeting of the Executive Off ice yesterday.

Serbia’s Viktor Troicki in action during his victory over Ulises Blanch of USA at the Australian Open 2021 Men’s Qualifiers at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha yesterday. (Tennis Australia)

Al Sadd’s Baghdad Bounedjah (centre) scores during QNB Stars League match against Al Duhail at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium yesterday.

Al Rayyan’s Shojae Khalilzadeh (centre) celebrates with teammates after scoring against Qatar SC.