Tennis: Defending champion Pete Sampras was blasted out of the Masters Series event in Miami by American teenager Andy Roddick last night.

Roddick (18) was included in Patrick McEnroe's first American Davis Cup squad, but had not previously backed up the hype surrounding him by beating a big-name player.

But yesterday the wild-card entrant dumped 13-time Grand Slam winner Sampras, out in round three of the second Masters Series event of the season, winning 7-6 (7/2) 6-3 in the first match of the day on Stadium court.

Fourth seed Sampras has not made the most convincing start to the season, but reaching the Masters Series final at Indian Wells last week looked to have put him back on track.

But this defeat suggests otherwise and Roddick will face either Sebastien Grosjean of France or Romanian Andrei Pavel in the last 16.

Tennis: Yvonne Doyle missed out on a second Girobank win in-a-row as she lost out in a close final to this week's tour singles in Sutton near London. Superior strength saw British junior champion Elena Baltacha better Doyle's accurate game to take the match 6-3 4-6 6-1.

Doyle, winner in Swansea last weekend, had gone 0-3 down in the first, before coming back to take a swinging second set. She won the opening game on her serve in the decider before slumping under Baltacha pressure.

Cricket: Ireland's fourth game of their South African tour against a Pirates club side was postponed yesterday after heavy rain on Saturday. The game has been re-arranged for Wednesday - a 40 over affair with as many as the Irish team involved as are fit.

Decker Curry is almost certain to miss the game as he continues to rest his troublesome hip. He should, however, be available as a batsman for Ireland's final game, against the Northerns Invitation at Centurion on Thursday.

For national coach, Ken Rutherford, yesterday, as the squad was forced indoors for nets at the Wanderers, it was a time of stock-taking after two defeats in three days.

He had not decided whether he had under-estimated the two Gauteng sides which he had hand-picked or he had over-estimated Ireland coming out of a northern hemisphere winter. He did admit that he was very disappointed at the convincing nature of the two victories.