A round-up of today's stories in brief
McGee leads Irish qualifiers
GOLF:Garth McGee,the 19-year-old son of Malone club professional Michael, produced a performance of the highest quality to tame the tough Hillside course and qualify comfortably for the match-play stages of the 116th British Amateur Championship.The former Irish Junior international fired a splendid one under par 71 to add to his 74 at Hesketh on Monday. Out in one over 37, having canned a crucial putt for a par at the ninth, he birdied the 12th thanks to a 20-foot putt and then got up and down for a birdie at the long 17th.
Portmarnock’s James Fox, and Paul Cutler from Portstewart also made it through.
Irish qualifiers:145 G McGee (Malone) 74 71. 146 J Fox (Portmarnock)76 70 147 P Cutler (Portstewart) 72 75. Irish Non-qualifiers: 148 R Whitson (Mourne) 75 73 149 D McElroy (Ballymena) 78 71, R McNamara (Headfort) 78 71; 150 C Selfridge (Moyola Park) 74 76 151 J Greene (Carlow) 75 76 152 C Martin Kilkenny) 77 75 153 A Dunbar (Rathmore) 80 73 159 S Ryan (Royal Dublin) 84 75. 161 J Hopkins (Skerries) 83 78.
Boston Bruins must do it on the road
ICE HOCKEY:The Boston Bruins, fresh off a dominating 5-2 win to tie their NHL play-off series against the Vancouver Canucks, now face one of the toughest tasks in hockey – to close out the series on the road.
Game Seven in Vancouver tonight will be the 16th time a Stanley Cup final series has gone to a deciding seventh game. In the 15 earlier series, the home team has won 12 times.
For that reason, Boston head coach Claude Julien sounded cautiously optimistic at best after Mondays win.
Canucks counterpart Alain Vigneault was calm and relatively breezy, despite the pounding his team received. “We’ve got to be hungrier than we have been the last three times in Vancouver,” said Julien. In their three series losses to the Canucks the Bruins have scored only two goals and been shut out twice. Their home wins, by contrast, have featured 17 goals.
Williams makes a winning return
TENNIS:Serena Williams made a winning return to action after nearly a year out with victory over Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova at Eastbourne yesterday.
The 29-year-old American, out of action due to injury and health problems since winning last year’s Wimbledon title, looked nervy and sluggish initially before settling down to win 1-6 6-3 6-4 and move into the second round.
It was far from pretty, but after claiming on Monday she had been on her “death bed” earlier this year, the 13-times grand slam champion would have been encouraged to beat an opponent who reached last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals. “She is an unbelievable player, she beat Venus at Wimbledon last year and when I saw the draw I thought, ‘Oh my God’,” said Williams.
Niland through to final qualifier
TENNIS:Conor Niland bravely rallied from a set down to clinch a final round place in Wimbledon qualifying at the All-England Club in London yesterday.
Niland’s prospects of building on his first round win over France’s Josselin Ouanna looked far from rosy when he won only four games in the opener.
But the Irish No 1 regrouped in stunning fashion in his contest against Australia’s Greg Jones, and he proceeded to put his opponent under consistent pressure before prevailing on a 4-6 7-5 6-2 scoreline.
The 187-ranked Limerick native left no doubt about his superiority by breaking twice in the decider. Niland has a rest day today and tomorrow faces Serbia’s 274-ranked Nikola Mertic.
Gullit is fired
SOCCER:The leader of Russia's volatile, Muslim Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov, who is the president of Terek Grozny, who languish 14th in the 16-team Russian Premier League 16-team league, said he fired coach Ruud Gullit yesterday after the team lost a match he had billed as Gullit's last chance to prove he cared more for their poor league position than local bars. Terek lost to an own goal in the dying seconds of the match at Ankar Perm yesterday.
Ireland team for World Championships named
SWIMMING:
Swim Ireland will be sending six swimmers to the World Championships in Shanghai, China, including a women’s 4x200 metres relay squad to the week-long meet which gets under way on Sunday, July 24th, writes John Kenny.
The six are Melanie Nocher, Barry Murphy, Gráinne Murphy, Sycerika McMahon and Clare Dawson, while Chris Bryan will compete in the five and 10 kilometre open water competitions.
The qualification process for Irish swimmers consisted of two Irish domestic qualifier events during the year, the Dave McCullagh Memorial in February and Irish Long Course Nationals in April.
Gráinne Murphy, the 2010 European 1,500 Silver medallist had already qualified for the worlds last year, while Nocher qualified through winning the women’s 200 metres Backstroke at the Nationals at the National Aquatic Centre.
