Bits and Pieces

 Alonso ‘not comfortable’ yet at Indy 500

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana: Fernando Alonso said on Wednesday he is not yet comfortable with oval racing as the Spanish driver races to cram years of learning into a few weeks of preparation for this year’s Indianapolis 500.

Alonso, a two-time Formula One world champion who only settled into the cockpit of an IndyCar for the first time two weeks ago, said he has plenty of work to do before being ready for the May 28 race.

“Happy where I am now, but definitely not comfortable,” Alonso told reporters ahead of Wednesday’s practice at the sprawling 2.5 mile (4.02 km) oval speedway.

Alonso, 35, had his first test session in an IndyCar two weeks ago and on Monday during his first official practice set the pace in the rookie orientation session with a speed of 221.634 miles per hour.

He then got a taste of what competing in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” is like on Tuesday as nearly all 33 cars were on the track at once for what is known as ‘Happy Hour.

Speeding around the track in traffic gave Alonso a closer glimpse into oval racing and he said he was starting to get used to what he described as a strange feeling given the different technique needed to drive an IndyCar.

“Obviously if you develop your whole career in the Formula One in Europe, you come here, in the oval racing, the car felt not natural to drive because, you know, the car turns left by itself,” said Alonso.

Federer smart to target quicker surfaces, says Djokovic

ROME: Roger Federer made a smart decision by pulling out of this month’s French Open, where he has less chance of adding to his 18 grand slam titles than on the sport’s quicker surfaces, world number two Novak Djokovic said on Thursday.

Federer, who announced his withdrawal from the May 28-June 11 claycourt major on Monday, said he felt he needed to avoid playing on clay this season to help prolong his career.

“You know, he’s very smart in his decision-making. He knows what he’s doing,” 12-time major winner Djokovic told reporters.

“Of course he’s aware he has a much better chance to win big trophies on quicker surfaces.”

Federer defied age and logic to win the Australian Open in January after a knee injury kept him out of tennis for six months, and followed that up with two more high-profile titles at Indian Wells and Miami.

“Grass obviously is where he feels the most comfortable,” Djokovic said. “I’m not too surprised with this (French Open) decision. I mean, he had a lot of matches played at the beginning of the year, and he did amazingly well.”

Swedish top-flight game postponed after fixing attempt

STOCKHOLM: Thursday’s top-flight clash between Swedish giants Gothenburg and AIK was postponed after at least one player was threatened and told to fix the result.

There have been several similar incidents in Swedish football in the past but none involving the first division.

“This is a very serious attack against Swedish football and we will never, never accept this,” Hakan Sjostrand, secretary general of the Swedish Football Federation, said in a statement.

“Based on the information we’ve received, we cannot guarantee that the IFK Gothenburg and AIK game is a safe match.”

Stockholm-based AIK informed the federation that a player had been approached and threatened and the police were called in.

The player was offered “a large sum of money” in exchange for trying to ensure that AIK lost, the federation said.

“With veiled threats the fixer demanded that the player perform badly during the match against IFK Gothenburg,” the federation said in a statement.

IFK Gothenburg’s sports chief Mats Green initially identified the player as AIK’s Greek-Canadian goalkeeper Kenny Stamatopoulos, Green told the daily Goteborgs-Posten.

But later, at a press conference, Green said he had spoken too hastily and that “several players” from AIK had been targeted, without specifying whether Stamatopoulos was one of them.

FA to bring in retrospective diving bans

LONDON: England’s governing Football Association has voted in favour of bringing in retrospective bans for players who dive or feign injury from next season.

Thursday’s annual general meeting at Wembley saw the FA create a new offence of “successful deception of a match official”, which is based on a regulation already used in Scottish football.

Incidents will be reviewed by a panel made up of a former player, a former referee and a former manager.

The trio will all look at footage independently and if they all agree a player has deceived a match official then a two-game ban will be imposed.

The new rule will be administered in similar fashion to the one that already covers red card offences which were missed by the match at the time of the incident but recorded by television cameras.

An FA statement said: “Although attempts to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled is a cautionable offence for unsporting behaviour, the fact that the act of simulation has succeeded in deceiving a match official and, therefore, led to a penalty and/or dismissal, justifies a more severe penalty which would act as a deterrent.”

If a player admits to a charge of successfully deceiving an official, or is found to have done so, any yellow or red card given to an opposing player, as a result of the deceit, can be rescinded. The new rule will apply across English football.

Aisam, Mergea out of Rome event

By our correspondent

KARACHI: Pakistan’s tennis ace Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea lost in the pre-quarter-finals of Internazionali Bnl d’Italia in Rome, Italy, on Thursday.  The unseeded pair of Aisam and Florin, ranked 28th and 23rd, respectively, was beaten by the fifth seeds Lukasz Kubot from Poland and Marcelo Melo from Brazil 2-6, 3-6 in men’s doubles category of this Masters event.