Injury scare for Ishant Sharma

India faced the prospect of going into Tuesday's second finals against Australia in Brisbane without ace paceman Ishant Sharma after he picked up a finger injury, reports DHNS from Sydney.

Ishant felt pain in the middle finger of his bowling hand towards the end of his first spell, bowled three more overs in the second and left the field after 20 overs, never to return again. Team manager Dr BR Soni revealed, “Ishant developed some fluid and some pain in the middle finger. A major injury was feared but the x-ray has cleared him. There is a little swelling but with some antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, he should be fine.

However, we will assess the situation on the morning of Tuesday's match.”

Anand maintains  top position

Viswanathan Anand drew with his nearest rival Magnus Carlsen of Norway to maintain his slender lead at the end of the 10th round of the Morelia-Linares tournament, reports PTI from Linares. Anand took his tally to 6.5 points to be half-a-point ahead of the Norwegian teenager.

Grandmaster Levon Aronian of Armenia remained in the third place with a draw against Teimour Radjabov, while Veselin Topalov managed to retain his fourth place by drawing against Vassily Ivanchuk.

Results (X round): Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 6.5) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 6.0); Teimour Radjabov (Aze, 4.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 5.5); Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 4.5) drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul, 5.0); Alexei Shirov (Esp, 4.5) drew with Peter Leko (Hun, 3.5).

Bhupathi enters doubles final

Top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles advanced to the doubles final of the Memphis tennis tournament with a facile 7-6 (11-9), 6-2 win over American-Russian duo of Jim Thomas and Igor Kunitsyn, reports PTI.

Bhupathi-Knowles pair will face Thai brothers Sanchai and Sochat Ratiwatana in the finals.

The Thai brothers prevailed over Brazilian combination of Marcelo Melo and Andre SA 3-6, 6-3, 15-13 in the other semifinal.

Kiwi Board hikes players’ salary

In order to reward players for being loyal and not getting influenced by the lucrative deals around, New Zealand Cricket has  decided to hand out significant pay increases to its 20 centrally contracted players, reports UNI from Christchurch.

Davenport wins another title

Former world number one Lindsay Davenport claimed her 55th career title by cruising to a 6-2, 6-1 victory over teenager Olga Govortsova of Belarus in the Memphis Championship on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky shocked top seed Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 7-5, 6-4 in the Zagreb Indoor final to win his first ATP title.