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Sports Shorts: Unseeded Pospisil-Sock shock Bryan brothers to win Wimbledon doubles
Unseeded Vasek Pospisil and Jack Sock claimed a Grand Slam title at the first attempt after beating American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan 7-6(5), 6-7(3), 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in an enthralling men's doubles final at Wimbledon on Saturday.
The athletic duo looked undaunted against the 15-times Grand Slam champions and converted their fifth championship point to take the match in three hours and six minutes.
Canadian Pospisil and American Sock become the first pair to claim a major tournament at the first time of asking since Lleyton Hewitt and Max Mirnyi took the U.S Open title in 2000.
The 21-year-old Sock has already captured a mixed doubles title at the U.S Open, with Melanie Oudin in 2011.
"To be my second Grand Slam title and to do it here at Wimbledon is unbelievable," Sock said.
"Our games just clicked perfectly together," Pospisil, 24, said.
"We were complementing each other the whole tournament. We were a dangerous team."
The 36-year-old identical Bryan twins, who have won a major tournament every year since 2005, had been hoping to claim a 99th tour victory and a 16th Grand Slam title.
"These losses are tough," Bob Bryan said.
"These are daggers but we usually bounce back."
"It helps to have a few Wimbledons in the trophy cabinet," Mike Bryan added. The twins have won the Wimbledon title three times.
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Injured Cavendish ruled out of Tour de France
Cavendish's Tour de France came to a brutal end after the British sprint specialist failed to recover from a horror crash at the end of the first stage and pulled out of the race on Sunday morning.
"It's devastating," Cavendish, who will have an MRI scan on a dislocated shoulder and torn (shoulder) ligaments, told reporters outside his Omega Pharma-Quick Step (OPQS) bus before the second stage, a tough 201-km ride to Sheffield.
Cavendish, aiming for a 26th Tour de France stage victory and the yellow jersey he has never won, dislocated his right shoulder in the finale of the opening stage from Leeds to Harrogate on Saturday, his mother's hometown.
The 29-year-old Cavendish had appeared too eager to succeed in the closing stages and, using his shoulders for extra leverage to prevent being squeezed for room, swayed towards Australian Simon Gerrans, bringing both of them down.
German Marcel Kittel narrowly avoided the carnage and sprinted clear of the pack to claim the overall leader's yellow jersey following his fifth stage win overall.
"Normally I bounce well when I crash but when I was on the floor yesterday I knew something was wrong, for the first time in my career I knew something was wrong.
"I wanted to cross the finish line as it was in Harrogate, I got back on the bike but couldn't hold the handlebars.
"When I took my skin suit off my shoulder was sticking out the way it shouldn't," Cavendish, who had won at least a stage in every Tour since 2008, said.
"I had held some optimism that it would just be swelling but this morning was worse. I'm gutted and majorly disappointed. I had really wanted to win yesterday for all the people watching."
Team doctor Helge Riepenhof said Cavendish's immediate reaction in the hours after the crash was that he wanted to be at the start on Sunday.
"His first thought was I want to race tomorrow and he wanted to know what we could do," he told reporters.
"With things like this Mark needs some time to be convinced that he has no chance to ride. I spent a bit of time with him last night talking and he made the decision that he can't race and which was quite lucky for me so that I wasn't the one who had to tell him."
OPQS team manager Patrick Lefevere described the team's start to the Tour as a "nightmare" and appeared to suggest that Gerrans had been slightly to blame for the crash.
"Gerrans came a little bit quicker but we was next to Mark. He was at the end of his sprint and tried to go in Mark's slipstream and he used his elbow to break down Mark.
"Mark used his body against him and the rest is what we saw," the Belgian said.
Cavendish, however, explained it had been a racing accident and said he had apologised to Gerrans.
"The two of us were on Peter Sagan's wheel. I wanted to go but Gerrans was there. I wasn't budging and Simon wasn't budging and we went down."
OPQS's Tour had been built around Cavendish and the team suffered more misfortune on the opening day when Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi suffered an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
"We could give him antihistamine but the problem is that makes you rather tired," Riepenhof said.
"Cortisone is the other option but you can't give that and we support that. Today will be tough but I think he'll get through it."
OPQS's strategy is now likely to focus on Poland's Michal Kwiatkowski, who can reasonably target a top 10 finish in Paris as well as vying for honours in the young rider classification.
"We go from defending to offence," Lefevere said.
"The other riders have a free role and that means we have to change our tactics."
The opening three stages of this year's race are being held in England.
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Kapur finishes inside top-30 at Open de France
Shiv Kapur rounded off a modest week with a one-under 70 to finish inside top-30 at the
Alstom Open de France on Sunday.
Kapur, the lone Indian to make the cut this week, ended the tournament at four-over 288.
Jeev Milkha Singh and Gaganjeet Bhullar had earlier missed the cut.
Kapur opened with a bogey on first but birdies on fifth, seventh, 10th and 11th saw him climb to three-under, but he once again had problems on the back nine at the Le Golf National as he dropped three bogeys between 13th and 16th.
A closing birdie on 18th did give him a positive feel unlike the second and third days when he bogeyed the 18th.
At the top, American Kevin Stadler, starting the day four shots clear of his nearest rival, was comfortably coasting to a wire-to-wire win as he was four shots clear of Victor Riu, 512th ranked player in the world.
Stadler was one-over through five holes and eight-under for the tournament, while Riu, also one-over for six holes, was four-under for the tournament.
Jamie Donaldson, Robert Karlsson and Graeme McDowell, Michael Hoey and Matt Baldwin were just behind them.
Thailand's Thongchai Jaidee defied the blustery showers on Saturday to score 69 and he repeated that on final day to show that he was all set for the last two Majors of the year.
Thongchai finished even par for the week and looked set for a top-10 finish.
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Lotus set to switch to Mercedes power in 2015
Mercedes want to continue supplying engines to four Formula One teams next season, with Lotus expected to take the place of McLaren.
Asked by Reuters about a likely Lotus deal, Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff offered a carefully-worded reply after qualifying at the British Grand Prix on Saturday.
"I think nothing has been communicated yet," he said, smiling when the word 'yet' was repeated back at him. "Obviously we have had four teams this year and you build up a structure for four teams.
"We'd rather have four teams than three."
McLaren are in the last year of their Mercedes agreement and will be powered by Honda next season in a deal guaranteeing them exclusivity for some time to come.
Mercedes also supply Force India and Williams as well as their own championship-leading factory team.
Renault, whose engine has been out-performed by Mercedes this season, could also benefit from being more narrowly focused.
Red Bull principal Christian Horner said earlier in the week that the French manufacturer should have concentrated its development on his team.
Shedding Lotus would leave just champions Red Bull and sister team Toro Rosso along with strugglers Caterham on Renault's books.
"If it is three teams next year it will be less of an income from customers but not at a level that will prevent us from doing the job we want to do next year or the year after," Remi Taffin, Renault's head of trackside operations, told the autosport.com website.
"If anything Renault would cover this and would even help more than that to help Renault Sport to get back to the top."
Ferrari are Formula One's third current engine manufacturer and supply Sauber and Marussia as well as their own team. They are also expected to power the new U.S.-based Haas team when it debuts in 2016.