1. Art and Diseño

OMAN TRIBUNE
SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015
15
Berdych brings majestic Nadal to knees
Murray ends Kyrgios run; Sharapova blows away Bouchard to march into Australian Open last four
MELBOURNE
RAFAEL NADAL’S AUStralian Open dream lay in
tatters Tuesday with the
third seed crushed by Tomas
Berdych in the quarter-finals,
but Maria Sharapova showed
who’s boss by slapping down
Eugenie Bouchard.
The out-of-sorts Spaniard,
a 14-time Grand Slam champion, was never in contention against a player he had
beaten the last 17 times they
met stretching back to 2006.
The Czech seventh seed insisted ahead of the match that
the imposing statistic meant
little and he came out of the
blocks firing, winning 6-2,
6-0, 7-6 (7/5) despite a mini
Nadal revival in the third set.
“I was definitely ready for
it and set up my plan pretty
well and I stuck with that
through those three sets,”
said Berdych, who also made
the semis last year, losing
to eventual champion Stan
Wawrinka.
The upset pits him against
Andy Murray for a place in the
final, with the experienced
British sixth seed a step too far
for brash Australian teenager
Nick Kyrgios, who lost 6-3,
7-6 (7/5), 6-3.
Nadal had no excuses, admitting he played “a very bad”
match.
“I am not very happy because I didn’t compete the
way I wanted to compete in
the first two sets and that’s
something that I don’t like,”
he said.
“The season is long, beginnings are tough. I need to be
ready to accept all the situations that happen and try to
be strong.”
Murray, a three-time runner up at Melbourne Park, was
too composed for Kyrgios but
said he was taking nothing for
granted against Berdych.
“Maybe I won’t play well
in a couple of days; maybe I
play great. I don’t know,” he
Manan Vatsyayana/AFP
Andy Murray of Britain hits a return against Nick Kyrgios of Australia in the Australian Open men’s singles match on Tuesday.
said. “But I’ve given myself a
good opportunity again, and
hopefully I can use it to my
advantage.”
In contrast to Nadal’s lacklustre performance, the experienced Sharapova dominated
young Canadian pretender
Bouchard to set up an allRussian semi-final with dark
horse Ekaterina Makarova.
The world number two,
who could claim the top
ranking from arch-rival Ser-
Watson doubtful
for tri-series final
SYDNEY
ALL-ROUNDER SHANE
Watson said on Tuesday he
was unsure if he would be fit
for Australia’s one-day international final against England
or India but has no intention
of missing the upcoming
World Cup.
Watson, 33, was sidelined for Friday’s win over
England and the washed
out game against India in
Sydney on Monday with a
tight hamstring but said his
recovery was “travelling really well”.
“(It’s) nothing too
serious, but more so a
precaution just to make
sure it settles down over
this week and be ready to go
again by Sunday in Perth,”
he said.
“If not then, the practice
matches leading into the
World Cup.”
Australia and New Zealand are hosting the World
Cup which begins February 14 and the former are
scheduled to play warm-up
games against India and the
United Arab Emirates.
It is still not known
whether Michael Clarke will
return to the team for the
World Cup with his fitness
under a cloud as he recovers
from hamstring surgery undergone last month after he
injured himself in the first
Test against India.
Clarke has been given until Australia’s second game
of the World Cup against
Bangladesh on February
21 to prove his fitness, and
has been named in the squad
for the tournament.
Agence France-Presse
ena Williams if she wins the
title, showed her intent by
breaking the seventh seed in
the first game of the match and
never looked back.
Billed as a Glam Slam
showdown between two of
the game’s most marketable
women, an intense Sharapova
was all business in the crushing 6-3, 6-2 win.
“She’s been playing so well
at Slams, so confident and so
aggressive,” said the Russian,
gunning for a sixth Grand
Slam crown and her first in
Australia since 2008.
“I just really tried to take
that away from her a little bit.
I did a great job of that today.”
Sharapova, who also
dumped Bouchard out of
the French Open semi-finals
last year, gave no quarter on
Rod Laver Arena, hitting
18 winners and forcing 30
unforced errors from the
20-year-old.
Smith wins
Allan Border
Medal
Singapore beat Oman in ACC T20 qualifier
MELBOURNE
SINGAPORE ENDED OMan’s unbeaten run in the
Asian Cricket Council
Twenty20 Cup regional
qualifier championship by
sealing a 23-run win on
Tuesday.
Opting to bat after winning the toss, opener A
Mutreja hit a blazing 79 off
45 balls to help Singapore
score 198 for the loss of nine
STEVE SMITH ON TUESday capped a remarkable
season by sweeping the main
awards at the annual Allan
Border Medal ceremony,
including Australian player
of the year.
The prolific batsman, who
was promoted to national
captain in the absence of the
injured Michael Clarke, also
took out the one-day and
Test player awards. He was a
runaway winner for the Allan
Border Medal -- judged on
performances in Tests and
one-dayers throughout the
season -- by polling 243 votes,
ahead of David Warner (175)
and Mitchell Johnson (126).
He is only the third player
to win the trifecta in the 10
years it has been running.
AL DHAID (UAE)
She now faces Makarova,
who raced through her match
against third seed Simona
Halep, thrashing the morefancied Romanian 6-4, 6-0.
In the other women’s
quarter-finals, to be played
Wednesday, top seed Serena
Williams meets last year’s
finalist Dominika Cibulkova
while her sister Venus takes
on teenage American Madison
Keys.
Makarova, her right thigh
wickets in the stipulated 20
overs.
The bowlers to take the
wicket were AJ Lalcheta 3
for 30 and RJ Ranpura 3 for
38 in four over each.
Oman in reply lost two
early wickets but Jatinder
Singh gave the bowlers a
tough time by scoring 70
runs from 37 balls. After
his departure wickets fell at
regular intervals and Oman
managed to reach 179 for
Pakistan player
hit for six by
ghost sighting
Agence France-Presse
WELLINGTON
A PAKISTANI CRICKETer on tour in New Zealand was
hit for six when he saw what he
believed was a ghost haunting
him in his hotel room, the team
manager said on Tuesday.
Haris Sohail was convinced a
“supernatural” presence was
haunting him when he awoke
on Saturday night to find his
bed moving, team manager
Naveed Akram Cheema said.
Cheema told Fairfax media
that Sohail called a member
of the coaching staff who arrived to find the 26-year-old
all-rounder “visibly shaken”.
Sohail, a left-arm spinner
and middle-order batsman,
spent the rest of the night in
the coach’s room at the Rydges
Latimer hotel in Christchurch
before being moved to another
room.
The cricketer tweeted on
Sunday, “Allah always answers
your duas”. A dua is a form of
Muslim prayer.
One of his followers tweeted
back: “It’s nice to hear that you
recovered from that incident in
New Zealand. May Allah protect
you.”
Another replied: “You’ve
faced down Shaitaan (the devil), the Kiwis should be easy.
Best wishes.”
The hotel’s management
declined to comment on the
incident, referring enquiries
to Pakistan team officials who
explained that the cricketer
was suffering from a fever at
the time.
“We think it was the fever
that caused it (but) the player
Haris Sohail
still believes his bed was shaken
by something and it was a supernatural something,” Cheema
said, adding that Sohail had
been examined by the team
doctor and was found to be in
good health.
Sohail was reportedly unable to train for two days after
the incident and scored six
when batting at number four
on Tuesday against a New Zealand President’s XI.
The 4.5-star Rydges Latimer
has been rebuilt since the 2011
earthquake that devastated
Christchurch and claimed
185 lives.
There have been no overnight earthquakes recorded
in Christchurch since the Pakistan team arrived.
It is not the first time an international cricketer has complained of ghostly goings-on in
the night.
In 2005 several of the Australian party complained of
paranormal activity at Lumley
Castle hotel, which looms over
Durham county’s Riverside
ground.
The 600-year-old castle is rumoured to be haunted by Lily,
an aristocratic lady murdered
in the 14th century.
Agence France-Presse
heavily strapped, said she was
trying to stay grounded and
not let the pressure get to her
with Sharapova looming.
“I need to believe in myself.
I’m trying not to really think
that it’s semis, that I’m one
step from the final, but that
it’s just a normal match like
always,” she said.
“Just go out there and enjoy
my game.”
Halep came into the match
as favourite but her trademark
the loss of nine wickets.
In the other two matches
held, Kuwait defeated Maldives by nine wickets while
Soudi Arabia pip Malaysia by
43 runs.
A total of six countries
are vying for the top spot
in a round-robin format
and the team finishing on
top will qualify to play the
World Twenty20 Qualifier
in Ireland in July 2015.
Oman Tribune
fighting qualities deserted
her, with the talented 23-yearold saying she felt stressed by
the occasion.
“I practised very well in the
morning, but I was a little bit
too stressed before I started
the match,” she said. “I don’t
know why.”
Agence France-Presse
RESULTS
Men’s singles Quarterfinals
Tomas Berdych (CZE x7) bt Rafael Nadal (ESP x3) 6-2, 6-0,
7-6 (7/5)
Andy Murray (GBR x6) bt Nick
Kyrgios (AUS) 6-3, 7-6 (7/5),
6-3
Women’s singles Quarterfinals
Ekaterina Makarova (RUS x10)
bt Simona Halep (ROU x3) 6-4,
6-0
Maria Sharapova (RUS x2) bt
Eugenie Bouchard (CAN x7)
6-3, 6-2
BRIEF SCORES
At Al Dhaid
Singapore won by 23 runs
Singapore 198 for 9 off 20 overs
(A Mutreja 79, K Shinde 33*;
A Lalcheta 3-30, R Ranpura
3-38)); Oman 175 for 9 off 20
overs (J Singh 70, S Ahmed 32;
S Vijayakumar 4-20).
Man of the Match: Arjun
Mutreja (Singapore)
At Sharjah
Kuwait won by nine wickets
Maldives 138 for 9 off 20 overs
(M.Rishwan 31, A.Faiz 34;
S.Raza 5-27); Kuwait 143 for
1 off 8.5 overs (M.Irfan 63*,
A.Javed 55*).
Man of the Match: Sibtain
Raza (Kuwait)
At Sharjah
Saudi Arabia won by 43 runs
Saudi Arabia 176 for 6 off 20
overs (N Abbasi 65, M Afzal 34,
I Haq 30*; H Ghulam 3-22);
Malaysia 133 for 9 off 20 overs
(S.Kumar 33; S.Ali 5-19).
Man of the Match: Shoaib Ali
(Saudi Arabia)