Sports digest

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

McCann continues to shine in Tour of Taiwan

CYCLING:David McCann continues to ride strongly in the Tour of Taiwan, sitting an excellent third in the general classification after four days of racing, writes Shane Stokes.

The Giant Kenda rider finished in the main bunch yesterday, although he dropped a place from second when Markus Eibegger (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) soloed to victory in Cihu. McCann is now 19 seconds off the race lead. He remains seven seconds behind Monday’s winner Mehdi Sohrabi (Tabriz Petrochemical Team), and the two are expected to move past Eibegger again on today’s tough mountain stage to Sun Moon Lake.

Meanwhile, Nicolas Roche moved up to 12th overall in the Vuelta a Catalunya yesterday, after a solid 20th place on the stage to Banyoles. The stage was won by Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD), the Italian edging out Spaniard Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Movistar Team). Daniel Martin (Garmin-Cervélo) and Philip Deignan (Team RadioShack) also finished in the main bunch.

Murray could face Djokovic

TENNIS: Andy Murray could meet form player Novak Djokovic again in the quarter-finals of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.

Murray, seeded fifth, has been placed in the same quarter of the draw as the new world number two, who has yet to lose on the ATP World Tour in 2011.

Were they to meet, the clash would be a rematch of their Australian Open final in January which the Serb won in straight sets to deny Murray a first Grand Slam title.

Conroy out of intensive care

SOCCER:Former Republic of Ireland and Stoke City winger Terry Conroy has left intensive care after an improvement in his condition following emergency surgery on Sunday. The 64-year-old is now in the high dependency unit at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire and is reportedly communicating with family members at his bedside.

“We are all wishing Terry well,” said Stoke chairman Peter Coates. “Our thoughts are with his family and we just hope he gets better soon. We look forward to seeing him around the club again very soon.”

Conroy, an integral part of the Potters side of the 1970s and scorer in the 1972 League Cup final victory, suffered a suspected vascular aneurysm at the weekend.

Irish duo out of clash with China

BOXING: European Union and Irish Elite champion Con Sheehan and ex-Irish Elite champion Philip Sutcliffe are out of tonight's clash with China at the Dungarvan Sports Centre in Waterford through injury.

Tipperary heavyweight Sheehan picked up an ankle knock at the Irish training camp in Templemore last week and Sutcliffe will miss the 12-bout match with the Asian powerhouses due to a hand injury.

The duo have been replaced by John Sweeny and Craig McCarthy as Ireland go head-to-head with the Chinese for a second time since Sunday’s 9-3 win over the visitors in Wexford.

Katie Taylor will be back between the ropes against Cheng Dong looking to post her fifth win – Taylor beat Dong 6-2 in Wexford – on the trot over the world number two.

Davey Joe Joyce is in against Fanlong Meng, four days after Meng, who took a standing count in the third, was beaten 9-2 by Joe Ward, who was making his senior international debut in Wexford.

Both nations will meet for a third time at the National Stadium in Dublin on Friday.

Australian Grand Prix 'very secure'

FORMULA ONE: Australian Grand Prix promoter Ron Walker claims the future of his race is "very secure" despite a recent verbal spat between Bernie Ecclestone and Melbourne's Lord Mayor.

With the contract for the Melbourne event due to expire in 2015, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle voiced his opposition to its escalating costs at Albert Park, claiming it was no longer needed.

That prompted F1 supremo Ecclestone to suggest the sport “didn’t need” Australia on the calendar, although he changed his tune a week ago when he said he would “hate” to lose the race.

Ecclestone, however, conceded he could not force somebody to continually throw money at an event they felt was too expensive.

Walker, though, feels the race is here to stay as he said: “There is a five-year option there that goes either way. Mr Ecclestone recognises this is a great city to come to. It is like Montreal. They lost it, and then they turned around and wanted to get it back.”