Golf/Harrington thrives in balmy BermudaBritish Open champion Padraig Harrington fired a three-under-par 67 to take a one-stroke lead over US Open champion Angel Cabrera in the first round of the 36-hole PGA Grand Slam at Mid-Ocean in Bermuda yesterday.
Harrington hit back from a bogey on the short third with birdies at the fifth, sixth and eighth for a two-under-par outward 32.
Further birdies came on the 11th and 12th, but the Dubliner then bogeyed the 13th and 15th before grabbing his sixth birdie at the 376-yard 16th.
Cabrera, who on Sunday lost to Ernie Els in the final of the World Matchplay at Wentworth, moved onto Harrington's heels with a closing birdie four, while Jim Furyk and Masters champion Zach Johnson, four over after five holes, had one-over 71s.
The first prize is €400,000 and Furyk is playing because US PGA winner Tiger Woods decided not to.
Harrington is the first European to qualify for the event since Paul Lawrie and Jose Maria Olazabal in 1999.
Ian Woosnam is the only European to win the title - back in 1991 when he was up against John Daly, Ian Baker-Finch and Payne Stewart.
MOTOR SPORT:Felipe Massa has signed a contract extension at Ferrari until 2010, ending speculation linking Fernando Alonso with a move to the team.
Spaniard Alonso has been the subject of feverish speculation over his future since his public falling-out with McLaren boss Ron Dennis earlier this year, but Massa's new deal at the Scuderia firmly slams the door on the reigning two-time champion.
The announcement comes in the run-up to the season finale at Interlagos in Brazil on Sunday, and will give Massa a timely fillip ahead of his home race.
The 26-year-old is out of the title reckoning and will be forced to play second fiddle to team-mate Kimi Raikkonen this weekend, with the Finn embroiled in a three-way battle for the drivers' crown with Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
Massa has been contracted to Ferrari since 2001 but was farmed out to the Sauber team for the 2002 and 2004-05 seasons.
He was handed the Ferrari race drive as team-mate to Michael Schumacher at the start of 2006, since when he has won five times in 34 races.
CYCLING:Giro d'Italia winner Danilo Di Luca has been given a three-month ban for doping offences, the Italian Olympic Committee (Coni) have said.
The 31-year-old was suspended after a hearing at the Rome offices of Coni, the governing body for all sport in Italy, for his links with Carlo Santuccione, a doctor accused of supplying doping products to athletes. The ruling means the ProTour leader will miss the competition's last race of the season, Saturday's Giro di Lombardia in northern Italy.
"I'm disappointed. It is an injustice," Di Luca said. "I'm absolutely convinced of my innocence."
Di Luca was forced to pull out of the road world championships in Stuttgart just three days before they started last month, after Coni's anti-doping chief Ettore Torri charged the Liquigas rider.
Torri had asked for a four-month ban.
GAELIC GAMES:Brian Coady and Pat O'Shea have been named joint winners of the Philips sports manager of the month for September.
Coady has taken Kilkenny, who beat Limerick by 2-19 to 1-15 in the All-Ireland hurling final at Croke Park on September 2nd, to five all-Ireland titles in his eight years in charge of the county.
Pat O'Shea maintained Kerry's success in only his first year as manager when the reigning champions beat Cork by 3-13 to 1-9 in the All-Ireland football final on September 16th.
DOPING:Wada vice-president Jean-Francois Lamour has announced he had quit his job and pulled out of the race to become president of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The Frenchman, a former sports minister in his home country, was a leading candidate to succeed Dick Pound as president until the late candidacy of Australian John Fahey.
"I don't want to be the president of a body that does not have the strength and the dynamism to fight against doping," Lamour said yesterday.
"Wada has been put under pressure by lobbies. The number of those who want to foist doping on sport, those who favour the setting up of cheating, is increasing and it is not how I see things."
Lamour, a double fencing Olympic champion, added: "What bothers me today is that there are two visions of the fight against doping.
"One is minimalist and states that the less doping cases you have, the better we are. And there is another one that preserves ethics and the athletes' health. Wada has to be the international cop against doping."
The election of the new Wada president will be held on November 17th in Madrid.
TENNIS:Local favourite Patty Schnyder eased into the second round of the Zurich Open after sixth seed Serena Williams retired injured at 6-0 3-0 down.
The American, who lost Sunday's Kremlin Cup final to Elena Dementieva, looked extremely out of sorts, barely moving as she surrendered her first two service games.
Briefly leaving the court at 3-0 down, Williams returned but showed no sign of improvement, taking just three more points as Schnyder romped the opening set 6-0 in 22 minutes.
The second set began with Williams heading for the wrong side of the court.
The American, who has made late withdrawals from previous editions of the Zurich tournament, was whistled off the court following the umpire's announcement of her retirement "due to injury" at 3-0 down in the second set.
SNOOKER:Stephen Hendry needed a clearance from the last red in the deciding frame to keep alive his Grand Prix title aspirations in Aberdeen last night.
The seven-time world champion beat Barry Hawkins 4-3, the clearance of 35 enabling him to win the decider on the black and maintain his hopes of winning a first ranking event for 32 months.
Had his opponent, 46-10 in front with the match level at 3-3, won the frame, the Scot faced certain elimination even with two matches still to play today.
It was a typical back-to-the-wall performance which helped Hendry to victory.
He lost the first frame and fell 2-1 behind before pulling the game out of the fire, a break of 76 taking the Scot 3-2 ahead.
Tactics ruled in the decider, particularly on the final red as Hendry snookered his opponent.
Hawkins hit the ball but with safety by no means certain, he gave the Scot a glimpse of a pot and that was enough to carry him through.
But Ken Doherty kissed goodbye to his hopes of reaching the last 16 after losing 4-3 to Ian McCulloch.
Doherty has now lost all his three matches played so far and props up the six-player group who are headed by the unbeaten Ricky Walden.
Earlier, defending champion Neil Robertson crashed out of the tournament after a 4-2 defeat in his final group match against Stephen Lee.
The Australian left-hander was named the Snooker Writers' Association Player of the Year earlier in the day for being the only man to win two ranking events last season.
But Robertson's fate was out of his hands in any case after Joe Perry beat Joe Swail 4-2 to finish runner-up in their group.
