Today's other sports stories in brief

Fu claims O'Sullivan's scalp

SNOOKER: Ronnie O'Sullivan crashed out of the Welsh Open yesterday as he surrendered a 3-1 lead to lose 5-3 to Marco Fu at the Newport Leisure Centre.

O’Sullivan looked to be in control at the mid-session interval but Fu rattled off four frames in a row to book his place in the quarter-finals.

Fu will now face the winner of last night’s clash between John Higgins and Neil Robertson

O’Sullivan was not at his fluent best but still did enough to take a 2-0 and then a 3-1 mid-session interval lead.

Fu took the fifth set and when O’Sullivan missed a simple pink in the sixth, Fu took full advantage to draw level before going 4-3 ahead before finishing off in style with a 115 break in the final frame.

Ram cleared to compete in UAE

TENNIS:The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will allow Israels Andy Ram to play in the men's Dubai Championships next week, the state news agency WAM said yesterday.

A UAE foreign ministry official was quoted as saying the doubles specialist would be given “special permission” to take part.

“This ... does not politically imply any form of normalisation with countries with which the UAE has no diplomatic relations,” the official added. Top Israeli player Shahar Peer had to forfeit her place in the women’s tournament in Dubai this week after the UAE blocked her visa application.

“We welcome the change of the UAE policy which will allow Andy Ram to play this week in Dubai and which clarifies that all Israeli athletes will be able to compete in future tournaments in UAE,” Women’s Tennis Association chief Larry Scott said in a statement.

Belarussian the next opponent for Sutherland

BOXING:Darren Sutherland has secured the second fight of his professional career, against 29-year-old Siarhei Navarka from Belarus. The Olympic bronze medal-winning middleweight, who will operate in the heavier super- middleweight division for his professional career, will meet Navarka on March 6th in Wigan.

Sutherland, who convincingly won his debut bout in Dublin City University, is hoping to fight for an Irish title at the end of the year but for now he continues on a steep learning curve.

“He is a durable opponent. He has gone the distance more often than he’s been stopped and that’s what we’re looking for,” said Maloney yesterday in Dublin.

“Hopefully, we’ll get some rounds in this time but if he does the job quickly no-one is going to complain.”

Sisters face each other in last four

TENNIS:Serena and Venus Williams will clash for the 19th time after reaching the semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships yesterday.

Venus handed defending champion Elena Dementieva her third defeat of the year, winning 6-3 6-3, and top seed Serena withstood a strong challenge from Serbian Ana Ivanovic to advance 6-4 6-4. The two sisters have a 9-9 record against each other.

England to go it alone on 2015

RUGBY: English RFU chairman Martyn Thomas has confirmed that England will make a solo bid to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

England’s proposal was supported by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and sports minister Andy Burnham after high-level talks at Downing Street on Wednesday.

Ireland, Scotland and Wales are keen on staging the tournament but none of them have the facilities to do it alone. England’s move would appear to rule out a combined bid by all four nations, but Thomas said England would consider moving some matches.

“We have certainly had very good discussions with the Welsh in terms of using the facilities they have, particularly the Millennium Stadium but also the Ospreys and maybe the new Cardiff stadium,” said Thomas.

“I am sure if we go ahead with the bid we will certainly involve games in Wales. We haven’t totally ruled out games further north.”

Azharuddin enters politics

CRICKET: Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin, banned for life from cricket in 2000 following the match-fixing scandal, entered politics yesterday. The 46-year-old, who led India to a then record 14 Test wins, was made a member of the ruling Congress party just a few weeks before the general elections. "I've always been a fan of the Congress party," he told a party news conference.