Sports Digest

A round-up of other sports news in brief

Confidence 'is high' in Edinburgh

RUGBY: Edinburgh skipper Mike Blair yesterday claimed Scotland’s Heineken Cup sides are no longer viewed as a soft touch on the European stage. Only one Scottish team – Edinburgh in 2004 – have reached the quarter-finals of the tournament amid several false dawns where they looked like they could challenge for the knockouts stages.

But Edinburgh currently top the Magners League table, while Glasgow are also confident they can progress beyond the Heineken Cup group phase.

Both provinces triumphed in France for the first time last season, against Castres and Toulouse, respectively. “Scottish teams have gained a lot more respect from opposition sides in the Heineken Cup, whether they be from France, England, Italy, Ireland or Wales,” he said. Edinburgh open their Heineken Cup campaign at Stade Francais on October 10th and Blair revealed confidence is high. “We’ve made a lot of progress. We lost at the weekend but we’d won nine games on the trot in the Magners League before that,” he said.

Dementieva latest casualty

TENNIS: Russia’s Elena Dementieva became the latest high-profile casualty at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo when the third seed was upset by Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko in the second round yesterday.

The Olympic champion was beaten 6-2 6-7 6-1 to leave the event shorn of its top three seeds and she was quickly joined at the checkout counter by fourth seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki, who retired with a viral infection.

Former world number one Maria Sharapova had no such problems, however, powering into the last 16 with an almost flawless 6-0 6-1 victory over Australia’s Samantha Stosur.

Current number one Dinara Safina, second seed Venus Williams and French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova all lost their opening matches on Monday after first-round byes.

A tournament which began with nine of the world’s top 10 was down to just two before the close of play yesterday.

Ten recommendations in RFU drive to clean up game

RUGBY: Lawrence Dallaglio is confident the English union’s drive to clean up the image of the game after a summer of scandal has been a significant success. The former England captain has been part of a 13-man task force that spent the last month conducting a widespread review, including an investigation into the scale of cheating within rugby. The RFU created the Image Of The Game task force in the wake of drug issues at Bath and the Harlequins Bloodgate scandal.

A list of over 10 concrete recommendations will be presented by RFU president John Owen at Twickenham this afternoon and Dallaglio is confident they will have a positive impact on the game.

“We want to create a situation where other sports look up to rugby and I am proud of what we have achieved here,” said Dallaglio.

“What you will find is there will be recommendations that will benefit the game as a whole that have been born out of this exercise”.

The RFU acted after Bath lost five players, including England internationals Matt Stevens and Michael Lipman, to drug related suspensions and Harlequins became embroiled in the Bloodgate saga.

Harlequins were found guilty of cheating in their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster after Tom Williams used a fake-blood capsule to feign injury. The task force have been investigating the impact that case had on the game including spectators and sponsors, and sought other evidence of cheating.

Gloucester's Delve has ban reduced

RUGBY: Gloucester’s Gareth Delve has had his suspension for striking London Irish’s George Stowers reduced on appeal from three to two weeks.

The players clashed after a dangerous tackle by Stowers – for which he was later charged – late in the English Premiership match at the Madejski Stadium on September 13th, and Delve was initially banned for three weeks.

But RFU disciplinary officer Jeff Blackett downgraded the striking charge from mid-range to lower end in terms of seriousness, the resulting two-week ban leaving him free to return on October 5th.

Stowers was suspended for two weeks for the tackle which sparked the fracas, and a further week for striking Delve.

Safin advances in Thailand

TENNIS: Russian Marat Safin reached the second round of the Thailand Open with a 6-2 3-6 6-1 win over fifth-seeded German Philipp Petzschner yesterday.

The former world number one, who will retire at the end of what has so far been a disappointing season, took his record to 11-16 by overwhelming the German with a slick final set performance.Top seed and defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France begins his campaign today.

Massa back behind the wheel

MOTOR SPORT: Brazilian Felipe Massa climbed into a racing car for the first time since sustaining a life-threatening head injury at the Hungarian Grand Prix when he drove seven laps in a kart on Monday.

Massa drove the kart at a circuit outside Sao Paulo where he was accompanied by friends and his doctor, Dino Altmann. Altmann told Massa to avoid driving for more than an hour to avoid back pain but light rain that became steadily worse prevented him from doing more than seven laps.

The 28-year-old Brazilian said last week he would take part in a kart race, his first competitive outing since the July accident, in late November in the southern Brazilian city of Florianopolis.

Massa, last year’s drivers’ championship runner-up, is not due to return to Formula One until next season.