Sport news in brief
Norries cruises past Tung-lin in California
Cameron Norrie eased past Taiwan’s Tung-lin Wu 6-2 6-4 in second round action at Indian Wells yesterday. Norrie, the 2021 champion, broke Wu four times en route to the win and will next face either Italy’s Matteo Berrettini or Japanese qualifier Taro Daniel. “Lots of good memories at Indian Wells,” Norrie said. “It’s nice to be through to the third round.” The 10th seed is off to a terrific start this year having beat world number two Carlos Alcaraz in the Rio Open final last month to claim his fifth singles title. Norrie’s win comes a day after unseeded Britons Andy
Murray and Emma Raducanu reached the second round at the ATP and WTA 1000 event in the Southern California desert with gutsy wins.
Norwegian Casper Ruud’s serve-forehand one-two punch proved too much for Diego Schwartzman as the third seed advanced 6-2 6-3 over a player who has given him trouble in the past. On the women’s side, Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann upset her doubles partner and countrywoman Belinda Bencic 3-6 6-3 6-3 to reach the third round of the tournament for the first time. Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko beat Croatian Donna Vekic, Latvian Jelena Ostapenko defeated Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Czech Barbora Krejcikova breezed past Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska. Reuters
Usyk agrees to Fury’s final offer – but adds a twist
Oleksandr Usyk accepted Tyson Fury’s final offer for an undisputed world heavyweight title fight, but added a twist to support Ukraine in its war against invading Russia. Usyk agreed to take the lesser cut of the purse for the fight, set at 30 per cent by Fury, who maintains he brings more commercial value to the event, which would crown a first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 2000.
Fury also vowed to deduct 1 per cent from that offer with every day that passed before an agreement was reached. And while Usyk “accepted” the offer to fight at Wembley Stadium on 29 April, he also demanded Fury donate £1m to aid Ukraine during the conflict. “And every day you delay you will pay 1 per cent from your purse to Ukrainian people. Deal,” said Usyk.
Button signs three-race Nascar Cup deal
Jenson Button has signed a deal to race in three Nascar Cup Series meetings this year. The 2009 Formula One world champion, 43, will make his debut in the stock car championship at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas – a venue he raced at during his F1 career – on 26 March. He will also
compete at a street circuit in Chicago in July, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course the following month. Button called time on his F1 career at the end of 2016 before making a one-off appearance as a replacement for Fernando Alonso in Monaco in 2017. He has since raced in different categories, winning the 2018 Super GT championship in Japan, and has competed at the Le Mans 24 Hours race.
Conte ‘ready to die’ for Spurs until end of the season
Tottenham manager Antonio Conte has come out swinging and insisted he will “die for this club” but only until the end of the season after acknowledging the supporters’ lack of patience. Spurs’ painful FA Cup and Champions League exits this month have increased speculation over the future of the under-pressure Italian, whose terms expire in the summer and although the club hold the option to increase his deal by a further 12 months, that is not set to be triggered. Apathy has set in from the fanbase and during a fiery press conference ahead of today’s visit of Nottingham Forest, Conte addressed Richarlison’s own explosive interview where he described this season as “shit” and took aim at his own supporters. “We are far to aspire to be competitive to fight to win,” Conte said. “I am repeating this for a long time. I say it we need time, we need patience. I see that here the (fans’) environment has no patience, no patience or maybe the environment doesn’t want to understand the reality.”
McIlroy on course to miss cut at Players Championship
Rory McIlroy looks set to miss the cut at the Players Championship, which was suspended mid-round yesterday due to storms. A first-round 76 at TPC Sawgrass in Florida left the Northern Irishman with an uphill battle and things did not improve in his second round, with McIlroy bogeying the fifth and then double bogeying the sixth before a birdie to stand at six over par after 10 holes. That is five shots adrift of the projected cut mark and 14 behind joint leaders Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Adam Svensson. None of the afternoon starters were able to
finish their rounds, with play halted just before 1630 local time [GMT 1130] because of the threat of lightning and not due to resume until this morning.
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