A roundup of today's other sports stories in brief:
Progress in Sochi gets IOC support
WINTER OLYMPICS: IOC president Jacques Rogge has given his full support to the organisers of the 2014 Winter Olympics, saying he was very happy with Sochi's progress."I am extremely pleased by the pace and quality of the preparations in Sochi," Rogge told a news conference in Moscow after signing a sponsorship deal with Visa.
The Russian Black Sea resort, which was awarded the 2014 Games at the IOC session in Guatemala in July 2007, needs to build most of the venues and infrastructure from scratch.
Sochi 2014 chief executive Dmitry Chernyshenko said Visa’s IOC contract helped his city to raise its sponsorship budget to over €700 million.
Venus brought down to Earth
TENNIS: Elena Dementieva lit up the WTA Championships last night with a sensational comeback to beat title holder Venus Williams 3-6 7-6 6-2 on the opening day of group matches.
The tenacious Russian looked down and out when she twice trailed by a break in the second set but blazed back under the Khalifa Stadium floodlights to leave her American opponent reeling.
A Dementieva double-fault at 5-5 in the second set gave Williams the chance to serve for the match but the Russian hit back with a searing backhand pass to set up a tiebreaker which she clinched when Williams also served a double-fault.
The deciding set was one-way traffic as an inspired Dementieva broke twice for a 4-0 lead before clinching her first victory over Venus for more than five years with another backhand winner.
"In the end I was very emotional, very positive," she said.
Jankovic off target in opening round in Qatar
TENNIS: Jelena Jankovic admitted her game needed a drastic overhaul after an error-strewn 6-2 6-3 defeat by Victoria Azarenka in the opening match of the WTA Championships in Doha, Qatar.
The Serb, who began the year ranked number one in the world but only crept back into the top eight last week in Moscow, struggled to keep her groundstrokes inside the lines as she handed Azarenka (20), a surprisingly easy victory.
“I basically gave her everything. I beat myself. That was really unfortunately the case. My game was completely off,” said the 24-year-old after launching 33 unforced errors.
Jankovic will have to improve drastically in her remaining White Group matches, starting with world number one Dinara Safina today, if she is to match her performance last year when she reached the semi-finals.
DeGale to honour Sutherland
BOXING: James DeGale is dedicating his fight on Friday to the late Darren Sutherland. Britain's Olympic gold medallist will be paying tribute to his long-time friend and rival when he takes on Ally Morrison in Liverpool.
“Me and Darren had a competitive but friendly rivalry; we both had respect for each other,” he said. “He beat me four times, I beat him twice and we both knew how good the other was. One day me and him were always going to box for a title, probably the world.
“With Darren we never said anything bad about each other, even though we were very different people. It’s a sad, sad loss not only for Irish boxing, but British boxing and world boxing because he was guaranteed to go on to big things.
I will be dedicating my next fight to him. I’ve got a little something, ‘RIP Darren’, on my shorts – like a couple of other fighters have done – but he was such a big part of my Olympic journey because I knew if I could get past him I would get gold.”
Yankees' return to prove big draw
BASEBALL: The return of the New York Yankees to the World Series and the attempt by the Philadelphia Phillies to become repeat champions is expected to lead to a record increase in television ratings in the US.
The Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays in five games last year to capture their first championship in 28 years in what was the lowest-rated and least-viewed World Series in history.
This year's best-of-seven series between the Phillies and Yankees begins tonight at Yankee Stadium ( live on ESPN from 11.30pm).
Last year’s World Series was seen in an average of 8.4 per cent of US homes, the only time the rating had dipped below 10 per cent since 1970.
Meanwhile, the Ricketts family has finally assumed control of the Chicago Cubs, ending a sales process that took more than two years.
The family bought 95 per cent of the team from bankrupt media company Tribune Co for $845 million (€572 million).
Australia wait on Johnson
CRICKET: Australia coach Tim Nielsen has refused to rule paceman Mitchell Johnson out of the second one-day international against India.
Cricket Australia indicated yesterday morning the left-armer had succumbed to an ankle injury and would join Brett Lee and James Hopes on the sidelines. But while Lee and Hopes are out, Nielsen is still optimistic Johnson will play.
For India, explosive middle-order batsman Yuvraj Singh has recovered from a finger injury and is available.
