A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Doherty avoids early exit
SNOOKER: Ken Doherty came from 3-1 and 4-2 down to beat Mohammad Sajjad 5-4 and avoid an early exit from the Shanghai Masters yesterday.
Doherty, who triumphed at the Crucible in 1997, struggled in the early going, with Sajjad going 3-1 ahead.
Doherty got one back but Sajjad took the next 65-13 to move 4-2 up and put Doherty on the brink of elimination.
But he recovered to string together the final three frames.
O'Rourke finishes long season with strong run
ATHLETICS: Derval O'Rourke was her typically competitive self when finishing fifth in the 100 metres hurdles at the IAAF Continental Cup in the Croatian capital of Split on Sunday, writes Ian O'Riordan
Her time of 12.99 seconds was outside the 12.65 Irish record she set when winning the silver medal at the European Championships in Barcelona last month, yet O’Rourke was only fractions behind some top-class opponents, not least the woman who denied her the gold in Spain, Nevin Yanit of Turkey.
Yanit finished in fourth behind the winner, Sally Pearson of Australia, who just edged out the American favourite, Lo Lo Jones, in 12.65.
O’Rourke was not helped by the fact she was drawn in lane one.
This was O’Rourke’s final race of a long and excellent season and was rewarded with a prize cheque of some €4,000, with the winner picking up around €25,000.
On the domestic circuit, Andrew Ledwith of Fr Murphy’s AC won the National Half-marathon Championships title in Carlow in 69 minutes 10 seconds, winning by 41 seconds from Michael Clohissey from Raheny, with Joe McAllister from Belfast third in 70:04.
The women’s title was won by Donegal-based Dubliner Maria McCambridge in 76:15, winning by a substantial margin of seven minutes from Lorraine Manning of Raheny in 76:15.
Raheny won the men’s team title while Mayo United took the women’s medals.
Agen sack wayward Fijian star
RUGBY:Agen have sacked their wonderfully talented but woefully undisciplined Fijian winger Rupeni Caucaunibuca for again missing a pre-season training camp.
Caucaunibuca (30), once described by England centre Mike Tindall as “the best player I have ever played against”, was expected in France on July 12th but did not arrive until last Friday.
Agen chairman Alain Tingaud and manager Christian Lanta told him he was not welcome at the club’s Top 14 game against Perpignan on Sunday and summoned him to a hearing yesterday.
“Following the meeting, the club told the player Rupeni Caucaunibuca that the decision had been taken to dismiss him,” the club said in a statement.
Caucaunibuca could not be reached for comment.
In April 2007, he was banned for three months by the French Federation after testing positive for cannabis after a Top 14 game.
Barry progresses at US Junior Open
TENNIS: Ireland's Sam Barry tore the form book to shreds as he clinched a place in the second round of the US Junior Open in New York last night. Playing in the Flushing Meadows event for the first time, the Limerick man, number 62 in the under-18 world rankings, dumped out the USA's 34th-ranked Nick Chappell 6-1 6-3 after 73 minutes.
Right-hander Barry made a very shaky start against his left-handed Toronto-born opponent, facing three break points in his opening two service games. But after saving all of those, breaks in the fourth and sixth games helped Barry take the opening set in 35 minutes.
Barry and Chappell shared four services break in the first six games of the second set but the Irish player broke to love in the seventh game, and after holding to 30 in the next, he finished off the American in style by breaking him to 15 in the ninth game.
