PETRON BLAZE GETS FORMER KNICKS BALKMAN AS IMPORT
PETRON Blaze Boosters got former National Basketball Association player 6’8 Renaldo Balkman of the New York Knicks as new import for the upcoming 38th Philippine Basketball Association Commissioner’s Cup beginning next month. JOSEF T. RAMOS

SERENA CLOSING IN ON WTA TOP SPOT
PARIS: Serena Williams is poised to regain the WTA World No.1 ranking she lost in October 2010, following her win in Brisbane at the weekend. The American was named WTA World Player of the Year last year for winning the Wimbledon and US Open titles as well as Olympic gold in London, but that was still not enough for her to overtake Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova ahead of her. But she is close on their heels and, having being knocked out early at last year’s Australian Open, is well placed to pick up big ranking points in Melbourne later this month. Azarenka, who will be top seed at the year’s first Grand Slam, has 10,595 points, 450 points ahead of Sharapova and 845 points clear of Williams. AFP

ISTANBUL HAS ACHIEVED SULTANS’ DREAM: BID CHIEF
PARIS: The Istanbul bid for the 2020 Olympic Games has achieved a dream held by the Sultans who used to rule Turkey in bringing both the continents the city straddles together as one, their bid chief told Agence France-Presse on Monday. Hasan Arat, who spoke to Agence France-Presse by phone from Lausanne after Istanbul had handed over their candidature file to the International Olympic Committee, said with Istanbul’s first underground tube train line to be opened on October 29 this year the bid had succeeded in bringing Asia and Europe together. The tube will reinforce the ties between the two sides of the city which have been connected by the Bosphorous Bridge which opened in 1973 and then a second one in 1988. “The dreams of the Sultans for hundreds of years has come true,” said Arat, a successful businessman in his own right after a career as a professional basketball player. AFP

KOREAN SPORTS STAR’S SUICIDE ECHOES DEATH OF ACTRESS-WIFE
SEOUL: Police confirmed that a former baseball star and ex-husband of a top South Korean actress, whose 2008 suicide shocked the country, took his own life over the weekend. Cho Sung-Min, a former pitcher for Japanese baseball team Yomiuri Giants, was found dead early Sunday with a belt around his neck by his girlfriend in the bathroom of her Seoul apartment. “The autopsy result showed death due to hanging,” Yonhap news agency quoted a senior police officer as saying. “We’ve concluded the case as suicide.” The 39-year-old was the former husband of the hugely popular actress Choi Jin-Sil, who took her own life in similar fashion in 2008, four years after their marriage ended. AFP