A round-up of today's other Sports stories in brief...
Davis withdraws from Bahrain
SNOOKER:Six-time world champion Steve Davis has withdrawn from the Bahrain Championship at the 11th hour citing medical reasons for his no show in the Middle East.
The 51-year-old has been suffering from an ear infection.
Davis is the fifth player to pull out of the new event, with Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins, Mark Selby and Dig Junhui also missing.
One of the tournament favourites, Ryan Day, is through to the last 16 after a 5-2 win against Dave Harold.
Peter Ebdon crashed out to Robert Milkins 5-3, while Neil Robertson beat Marcus Campbell 5-4 and Joe Perry beat Rod Lawler 5-1.
Six Irish reach quarter-finals
BOXING:Six Irish boxers are one bout from a bronze in quarter-final bouts at the 37th European Senior Championships in Liverpool.
Wicklow lightweight Ross Hickey and Belfast bantam- weight Ryan Lindberg will face Azerbaijan's Famil Suleymanov and Germany's Denis Makarov.
Cousins David Oliver Joyce and John Joe Joyce of the St Michael's Athy club will be in action against Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko and Dimitar Stilianov of Bulgaria. Following his 7-6 win over Turkey's Adem Kiliggi, Belfast middleweight Eamon O'Kane now meets Armenian Andranik Hakoyban.
John Joe Joyce beat Scottish light-welterweight John Tain 20-3, while Tipp heavyweight Con Sheehan progressed courtesy of a 10-2 win over Viktar Chvarkou of Belarus and fights Romanian Petrisor Gananau.
Ganguly signs off in style
CRICKET:Saurav Ganguly signed off from Test cricket in style yesterday by captaining a victorious India side in the latter stages of his farewell match.
Ganguly (36), who is only the second person to make a century in his first Test and a duck in his last, was asked by new captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to lead the team towards the end of their 172-run win over Australia.
India took the series 2-0 to clinch their first win over the world number one side since they were captained by Ganguly in 2001.
"I was already switched off, so he (Dhoni) woke me up," Ganguly joked. "I didn't know what was happening for the first six, seven balls, but luckily they were nine down. Then after three overs, I told him that it is his job and not mine.
"It has been a fantastic journey, if anybody would have told me when I started that I would go through all this I would not have believed him.
"But God has been really kind that I have gone through this for 13 years and finished off on a win for Indian cricket."
Federer has another poor start to Masters Cup
TENNIS:Roger Federer got his quest for a fifth Masters Cup title off to the worst possible start with a 4-6 6-4 6-3 defeat at the hands of Frenchman Gilles Simon yesterday.
The Swiss top seed, who withdrew from the Paris Masters 11 days ago with a back injury, made 50 unforced errors to fall to a second defeat in two encounters with the 23-year-old world number nine.
"The better you play, the better he plays, he's quite an unusual player and he makes you work hard and runs very well," said the world number two, who also lost to Simon at the Toronto Masters in July.
Federer lost his only previous Masters Cup group match to Chile's Fernando Gonzalez in his opening encounter last year but still managed to claim the title for the second season in a row.
Third seed Andy Murray blew hot and cold on his Masters Cup debut, prevailing 6-4 1-6 6-1 over Andy Roddick in the other match in the Red Group, from which two players will qualify for Saturday's semi-finals.
