Greg Rusedski, who slipped out of the top 10 after narrowly losing to Tim Henman in the third round at Indian Wells last week, ought to be primed to make a speedy move up from No 13 with few points to defend in the months ahead, and Henman is only one place from breaking into the top five. Henman’s second round opponent is Cecil Mamit, from Los Angeles, who yesterday defeated his American compatriot Paul Goldstein 4-6, 6-2, 7-5. Rusedski plays the Romanian Adrian Voinea, who was too strong for David Caldwell, a qualifier from Virginia, winning 6-0, 6-3.Mamit, ranked No 86, gained minor prominence last month by reaching his first ATP Tour final at the Sybase Open in San Jose, California. Fittingly, all but one of the world’s top 20 men are here (the American Todd Martin is resting an injured stomach muscle for the Davis Cup tie against Britain at Easter) with the No 1 ranking up for grabs again, and five former women’s champions are competing.
Many changes have taken place here over the years, not least the fact that Britain now has players good enough to enjoy the luxury of sitting out the opening round of the men’s event waiting for opponents.
It is not often that a commercial link is severed with sentimentality, but the Lipton has been everybody’s cup of tea, bringing together the men’s and women’s tours for one of the most successful events outside the four Grand Slams. THE KEY BISCAYNE tournament began its 15th and final run as the Lipton Championships yesterday before connecting to a new sponsor, Ericsson. However, with City still in financial trouble, Sturrock may be forced into a player-exchange deal.Sunderland are to screen Saturday’s home game with Bolton at the city’s Crowtree Leisure Centre after tickets for the First Division match sold out earlier this week.. The former Ipswich striker has endured a miserable time since arriving at Tannadice Park and the United manager, Paul Sturrock, is looking to cut his losses. Both could be included in the squad for Saturday’s trip to Nottingham Forest, although it is unlikely that either will make the starting team.Manchester City are set to sign the Dundee United forward Alex Mathie to help with their push for promotion from the Second Division.
His arrival at the Riverside ends Robson’s search for an out-and- out winger, and suggests that he could be prepared to abandon his five- man defence.Robson almost signed the Northern Ireland international Keith Gillespie from Newcastle last summer until a medical scuppered the deal.O’Neill, who made 86 appearances for Norwich over five seasons, scoring 10 goals, will be unveiled at a press conference at the club’s Rockliffe Park training ground today.His signing follows other positive news for Robson, who saw the striker Alun Armstrong confirm his return to fitness with a hat-trick for the reserves on Wednesday night. “He is also a useful utility player in that he is equally at home wide on the left or at centre-forward.”Given a good run, we feel he has the ability to become an excellent player because pounds 700,000 for a player of his ability and potential is a great price, considering Norwich turned down a pounds 4m bid from Newcastle a couple of years ago.”O’Neill would have been out of contract at Carrow Road at the end of the season and could have moved abroad on a free transfer under the Bosman ruling. The 23-year-old Republic of Ireland international was on Teesside for a medical yesterday before agreeing a four-year deal which will keep him at the Riverside Stadium until 2003.
Bryan Robson, the Middlesbrough manager, was delighted with his new acquisition, who at one time was valued at around pounds 4m “Keith is strong and very quick,” he said. ALTHOUGH MIDDLESBROUGH are thought to be attempting to entice Dino Baggio to England, the club made a more prosaic purchase last night when they completed the pounds 700,000 signing of the Norwich City forward Keith O’Neill. So to finally reach this cup final means a lot to me because I have had so many disappointments in semi-finals – now this really makes up for it.”. “I have lost four that everybody knows about – with Portsmouth, Spurs twice and England – but I even lost a Youth Cup semi with Pompey too It makes you think it is just not meant to be.
“It will be my wildest dream come true to play at Wembley again.”Spurs’ Darren Anderton has already buried one “jinx” by helping to guide Tottenham to the Worthington final and is now determined to demonstrate he is more than a injury-prone “nearly man”.The England midfielder had lost five semi-finals during his playing career before he made it sixth time lucky with victory over Wimbledon in the last four of the Worthington Cup last month.Anderton suffered semi-final defeats in the FA Cup with Portsmouth in 1992, at Spurs in 1993 and 1995, and with England in Euro 96.”I was beginning to believe I was jinxed when it comes to cups, and particularly semi-finals,” Anderton yesterday. Sinclair scored for Chelsea in last season’s League Cup win over Middlesbrough at Wembley but a groin injury suffered in the same match meant it proved to be his last appearance for the club.He missed out on Chelsea’s European Cup-Winners’ Cup win and then decided Stamford Bridge’s extensive foreign legion would mean limited first-team chances and decided to move to Filbert Street in a club record pounds 2.5m deal.Sinclair, who played for Jamaica in last summer’s World Cup finals, admits he “signed blindfolded” because he knew little about the Foxes, but insisted he moved to the Midlands to win trophies.Now he will achieve that aim if O’Neill’s side can overcome Tottenham, who are the favourites to take the next step towards a possible League Cup and FA Cup double.”What has happened has justified my move from Chelsea and there will be plenty of boys at Chelsea envying me when it comes to cup final day,” said Sinclair. But that’s not going to happen, so we’ll have to get on with it. Pontus played Juninho very well and played him fairly but there were periods in the Middlesbrough games which people forget when Juninho got himself clear.”Leicester’s Frank Sinclair will go into the final believing his summer move from Chelsea has been more than justified. The guy is world class and I’d love him to be playing with us rather than against us. “The two play in different roles and different positions but the parallels are there. But today is the first day I’ve really thought about the game, with the media attention we’re getting.”Ginola is clever enough to wangle his way out of any situation but we’ll certainly have a talk about it.