Davydenko wears down Haas to reach semis

Russian Nikolay Davydenko saw off Tommy Haas in the U.S. Open quarter-finals for the second successive year, beating the German 6-3 6-3 6-4 on Wednesday to reach the last four without dropping a set.

• Images from day 9 | US Open coverage

The fourth seed was at his consistent best as he wore down the 10th seed to set up a clash with either three-times defending champion Roger Federer or American Andy Roddick , the winner in 2003.

Davydenko is the only man left in the draw who has not dropped a set and the Russian said he would be completely fresh for his semi-final.

“For me it’s good if I play less,” he told reporters. “Today I didn’t think about what to do, I just concentrated for every point.”

Haas, who had come through two five-set battles to reach the quarter-finals, broke Davydenko in the second game but the Russian, dominating from the baseline, hit back to take the opening set.

The German recovered from 4-1 down to 4-3 but Davydenko held on to take the second set and after five straight breaks in the third Davydenko served out to reach the semi-finals.

Haas admitted he had simply not been good enough.

“Every time I would tried to do something different or fight my way out of it or do something he came up with an answer,” he said.

“The guy’s a tough player. You just have to hand it to him today. He came up with some great shots, very defensive play. At times he makes you try to do too much.

“There’s no excuses. I don’t have a hat, but I tip it for Nikolay once again. It’s all you can do. Overall I’m happy with the result, but obviously I’m not feeling too happy right now.”

IHF announces bonus for team

A bonus amount of Rs 1000 has been offered for each goal scored by the Indian team in the ongoing BSNL seventh Asia Cup Hockey tournament, it was announced by the Indian Hockey Federation on Wednesday.

IHF president K P S Gill said it is a token appreciation for the players for their fine showing in the ongoing tournament in Chennai.

“Our team has been consistently yielding goals in the first five minutes in the tournaments for a long time. In the four matches that has been played in the Asia Cup, the team had broken the jinx. We wanted to extend something as token of appreciation for the players,” Gill said in Chennai on Wednesday.

“When we beat Sri Lanka 20-0, it was decided by me to pay Rs 1,000 per goal to the whole team and not the goal scorer,” he said.

Gill said the team will be getting Rs30,000 for their 30 goals scored in four matches so far.

The veteran administrator refused to confirm if the team would be penalised for yielding goals.

“It is an internal matter between the players and the IHF. The deduction of money from players may or may not be applied. But, this small amount as token bonus will be paid to the team at the end of the Asia Cup,” Gill said.

India have a good chance to increase the bonus money kitty when they play their last league match against Thailand on Thursday.

Korea pull out of Champions Trophy

Asian Games champion Korea on Wednesday became the second team to pull out of the Champions Trophy men’s hockey tournament to be held in Lahore.

Koreans decided to give a miss to the tournament, to be held between December 1 and 9, in the wake of Tuesday’s twin blasts in Rawalpindi, which killed 25 people.

“Korean Hockey Federation held a meeting in Seoul and decided against the country’s participation in Champions Trophy,” Korean coach Myung Jun Cho and skipper Seo Jong Ho told reporters at the post match conference after a drawn encounter against China at the Asia Cup tournament in Chennai.

Olympic champion Australia have already pulled of the tournament.

Tara Iyer keeps tricolour flying

Tara Iyer advanced to the quarterfinals with a smooth victory while the rest of the Indians crashed out in both men’s and women’s singles at the Asian Tennis Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Wednesday.

The sixth seeded Tara beat home contender Nigora Sirodjiddinova 6-2, 6-1 to set up a clash against Hong Kong’s Ling Zhang who beat Taipei’s Chin-Wei Chan 6-1, 6-2.

Tara later teamed up with Rushmi Chakravarthi to advance to the semifinals of the women’s doubles event.

The third seeded Indian pair crushed the Uzbek duo of Sariya Khyrova and Nigora Sirodjiddinova 6-1, 6-1 to book a last-four berth against top seeds Chin-Wei Chan and I-Hsun Hwang.

However, it was the end of the road for the rest of the Indians in the singles competition. Rushmi, Karan Rastogi [Images] and Aditya Madkekar lost in the second round.

Rushmi went down to Uzbek wildcard Albina Khaibulina 6-2, 7-5.

In the men’s competition, third seeded Karan was upstaged 6-3, 4-6, 6-7 (5) by Japan’s [Images] Tatsuma Ito. Eighth seed Madkekar was shocked by Uzbek wildcard Vaja Uzakov 6-3, 3-6, 5-7.

Madkekar also had a disappointing day in the doubles competition as he and his Pakistani partner Aqeel Khan were ousted 6-3, 3-6, 10-12 by second seeds Ashutosh Singh and Vivek Shokeen.

Ashutosh and Vivek will next take on fourth seeds Hsin-Han Lee and Tsung-Hua Yang.

Bisleri eyeing BCCI beverage rights

Indian bottled water major Bisleri has set its eyes on entering the arena of cricket sponsorship. After talks with the Indian Cricket League (ICL), Bisleri is now competing with international giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo for the three-year pouring rights of international cricket matches that will be organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in India.

If Bisleri wins the beverage sponsorship, that will be announced later this week, it will be first time in the recent years that the Indian cricket team will gets a domestic beverage sponsor. International cola majors PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have been dominating the cricket landscape for more than two decades. The search is also on for the three prime sponsors for 55 BCCI international matches to be played in India till March 2010. Sports marketing agency, World Sport Group, which has won the bid for ground and title naming rights for Rs 173.25 crore will select the pouring or beverage sponsor as well as the other three sponsors.

Major financial institutions, including those associated with banking services, are reportedly in the running for key sponsorship slots.

“We are in talks with companies from the fields of telecom, banking, white goods, automobiles and two-wheelers. The total sponsorship amount from the four sponsors would be $50 million or a little over Rs 204 crore,” said Venu Nair, chief executive, South Asia, WSG. However, he refused to divulge any names.

Post selection of sponsors, it will be decided if the sponsorship rights would be divided between the three prime sponsors over number of matches. The other option will be to give each sponsor display rights for a year.

This is the first time that BCCI has gone for a tendering process for selling the ground and title rights, and it is also the first time that a sports management agency, rather than a corporate has won the contract, said Nair.

“Giving ground and title rights to an agency would ensure correct evaluation of the events. Moreover, it is not a corporate’s job or core competency to hunt for other co-sponsors. A corporate sponsor could also have a bias towards its own associates or group companies, leading to incorrect evaluation,” Nair explained.

Domestic cricket fails to get ad support

Domestic cricket continues to be a poor cousin of its international peer.

Although the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has made huge money through sponsorships for international cricket matches played in India, domestic cricket has failed to evoke any response.

This is the first attempt by the BCCI to start bidding for playground and title sponsorship for domestic cricket matches.

There were no bids for domestic cricket even as the deadline for both domestic and international cricket matches ended on August 27. However, for international matches to be played in India, the board received a bid worth Rs 173.25 crore from the World Sport Group.

The BCCI decided to wait for another week expecting some sponsors to come forward. But there has not been any response, say BCCI executives. “BCCI would probably go back to taking care of the domestic cricket matches on its own, as it has done so far,” said Ratnakar Shetty, BCCI chief administrative officer.

“The fact that that domestic matches are now being telecast on several channels had prompted the BCCI to consider the possibility of getting sponsors,” added Shetty.

There are up to 72 days of domestic cricket played in a year compared to 40-45 days of international cricket played on Indian soil every year. Advertising of television commercials during international cricket matches itself is estimated to be around Rs 550 crore, according to advertising industry experts, while the total amount spend on cricket including player sponsorships, telecast rights and so on are expected to be in the range of Rs 1,200 crore every year.

The lack of sponsors in Indian domestic cricket could also spell bad news for the recently established parallel cricket tournament, Indian Cricket League, as the ICL players are mostly local cricketers.

Advertisers, however, say that the interest by sponsors was lacklustre because of the high rates. The floor price for a year’s worth of domestic matches was Rs 15 crore. This price, too is considered too high for domestic cricket, which hardly has any viewership either on ground or on television, according to sports marketing agencies.

According to Venugopal Dhoot, chairman and managing director, Videocon Industries said, “Domestic cricket is hardly aired on television. Even if it is, how many people actually watch it? How many even watch it at the cricket grounds? It does not make sense to sponsor domestic cricket at this point.”

Says the chief executive of one of the leading sports marketing agencies in India, “Right now only Doordarshan is telecasting the matches. With NEO Sports coming into the picture, we’ll have to see how the domestic matches are packaged, whether any analysis is added and most importantly, whether the match-timings are improved. Currently, the matches are played only during the day, an inconvenient time for office goers. And viewership is definitely a problem. While there might be 30,000 to 40,000 spectators flocking to a stadium to watch an international match, for domestic matches, there are hardly a 100 spectators.”

Another analyst adds that while there is no dearth of viewers for Indian cricketers playing in international matches, these same people playing domestic cricket fail to attract viewers.

The Indian Cricket League is expected to fare better than the BCCI in this aspect as it has a healthy mix of international players too and it could also leverage the dual network of Ten Sports and Zee Sports to increase telecasting frequency — something that attracts sponsors.