Sports Bar

Sania loses Hobart opener

Sania Mirza’s preparation for the Australian Open suffered a setback as she crashed out of the WTA Hobart International after losing a first-round match to wild card Alicia Molik. The unseeded Indian lost 4-6 6-2 3-6 in one hour and 32 minutes. Meanwhile,in the WTA singles rankings,Mirza rose a rung to 56. The Indian. Mirza and Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual have been seeded second and open their campaign against Edina Gallovits of Romania and Marie-Eve Pelletier of Canada.

India lose,joint third now

India’s unbeaten run in the World Team Chess Championship came to a halt after they were handed a 1.5-2.5 defeat by top seed Russia,who remained on top of the tally after the sixth round in Bursa,Turkey on Sunday. India,who had slipped to joint third after they drew with Armenia in the fifth round,failed to make any headway and now share the position with Azerbaijan,Armenia and Israel with eight match points each. Russia share the lead with the USA on 15.5 points each.

Ronaldo sale gives United profit

Red Football Ltd,the holding company of English Premier League football club Manchester United,returned to profit in the year to end June 2009 boosted by the sale of player Cristiano Ronaldo. The unlisted company swung to a pretax profit of 48.2 million pounds,from a loss of 21.4 million pounds the year earlier,as revenue grew 9 percent. Its profits were lifted by the June sale of Ronaldo to Real Madrid for a world record transfer fee of 80 million pound.

New engineers for McLaren

McLaren moved to level the playing field between team mates Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button Monday by announcing new race engineers for both of the Formula One champions. The Mercedes-powered team said in a statement that Hamilton had been assigned Andy Latham,while Button will have Danish-born Jakob Andreason. Meanwhile,Hamilton and singer Nicole Scherzinger said they had ended their 20-month relationship.

McEnroe criticises Integrity Unit

John McEnroe criticised the handling of tennis match-fixing claims,saying the suspension of Russia’s Ekaterina Bychkova does not make sense. Last week,the Tennis Integrity Unit fined Bychkova and barred her from playing for 30 days,saying she failed to report that she was asked to throw matches. McEnroe said Bychkova had been suspended after turning down an illegal approach,which he said would dissuade other players from being honest.