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Arsenal’s Wenger 4-goal Newcastle plans ahead, won’t romp back to the reveal19 his future Premier League WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017 19 Cubs keep rolling, crush Pirates 14-3 Page 15 PORTLAND: Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors is guarded by Damian Lillard #0 of the Portland Trail Blazers during Game Four of the Western Conference Quarterfinals of the 2017 NBA Playoffs at Moda Center. — AFP Warriors come out swinging, complete sweep Raptors seize control with win over Bucks LOS ANGELES: The Golden State came out on a mission,” Curry said. “It scored the first six points of the third duced 25 points to help the Raptors defense and he’s playing at a very high Millsap led the Hawks with 19 points Warriors swept into the second round was a great way to put our foot on the quarter to stretch their lead to 30 move within one win of reaching the level for those guys right now. ... He’s and Dwight Howard delivered his best of the NBA playoffs on Monday with a gas pedal and get a win.” Draymond points. Curry’s three-pointer with sev- second round, with game six in picked them up here in the last couple performance of the series with 16 crushing 128-103 victory over the Green added 21 points for the en minutes to play in the third made it Milwaukee. “(Powell) is a sparkplug,” of games just with his energy and spir- points and 15 rebounds. Atlanta out- Portland Trail Blazers. Stephen Curry Warriors. Kevin Durant, who missed 91-58, and Portland wouldn’t get clos- Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “He’s it.” The winners of the series will face scored Washington 31-15 in the second scored 37 points with eight assists and the last two games with a left calf er than 23 points the rest of the way. the X-factor.” Kyle Lowry added 16 the reigning NBA champion Cleveland quarter and led 59-50 at halftime. The seven rebounds as the Warriors com- injury, scored 10 points in just 20 min- The Warriors now await either the Los points and 10 assists for the Raptors Cavaliers, who swept the Indiana Wizards responded with a 10-2 scoring pleted a four-game sweep of the best- utes on the floor. Angeles Clippers or Utah Jazz, whose while Serge Ibaka contributed 19 Pacers in four games. The Cavs beat the run to open the third quarter and they of-seven Western Conference first- Six Warriors players scored in dou- series was tied at two games apiece. points, DeMar DeRozan had 18, Raptors in the Eastern Conference were tied 77-77 going into the fourth. round series against the Blazers. ble figures as Golden state connected DeMarre Carroll added 12 and Cory finals last season. The Atlanta Hawks The Hawks gained control with a 14-5 Curry sat out the entire fourth quar- on 53.5 percent of their shots from the POWELL SPARKS RAPTORS Joseph scored 10 off the bench. defeated the Washington Wizards 111- scoring run in the final period. ter of a game the Warriors dominated field, including 17 of 29 from three- In Eastern Conference action, the But Bucks coach Jason Kidd said 101 to knot their Eastern Conference Schroder made two three-pointers, a from opening tip. Their 45 first-quarter point range. Damian Lillard scored 34 Raptors forged a 3-2 series lead with a Powell’s energy had added another series at two games each. jump shot and a driving layup in the points matched an NBA playoff record points and Al-Farouq Aminu chipped 118-93 victory over the Milwaukee dimension for the Raptors. “He’s play- Dennis Schroder shook off early foul final four minutes. Bradley Beal scored for points in an opening quarter, and in 25 for Portland, but the Trail Blazers Bucks in Toronto. Norman Powell, mak- ing extremely hard and he’s knocking trouble and a scoreless first half to fin- 32 points to lead the Wizards, who host they were up by 24 at halftime. “We never really threatened. The Warriors ing his second start of the series, pro- down shots, but he’s in there to play ish with 18 points for the Hawks. Paul game five today.— AFP TENNIS All eyes on Stuttgart as Sharapova returns Sharapova rags-to-riches journey resumes STUTTGART: From the shadow of Chernobyl’s $700 (644 euros) to their names. Yuri took odd jobs Open-where she fell in the quarter-finals to Williams, nuclear wasteland to international super-stardom like dishwashing to finance his daughter’s dreams her last match before her suspension. and from penniless arrival in the United States, with- although visa restrictions meant mother Yelena was out a word of English, to a fortune of $200 million. It back in Russia, separated from her daughter for two SERENA RIVALRY may sound like the stuff of Hollywood dreams, but years. When Sharapova was nine, the mighty IMG With Williams, she has endured her most testing the story of Maria Sharapova is a testament to the group spotted her talent and funded the $35,000 fees rivalry-on and off the court. The two famously power of one individual to make it, whatever the required for the Bollettieri school. exchanged personal insults over their love lives when odds, whatever the controversy, whatever people Sharapova began a two-year romance with Bulgarian think. Today in Stuttgart, the 30-year-old will return WIMBLEDON CELEBRITY player Grigor Dimitrov, a rumored previous suitor of from a 15-month doping suspension to open the She made her professional debut at 14 in 2001 the American. Sharapova had previously been next chapter. When she takes to the court to face and by 2003 reached the world top 50. She won her engaged to former Los Angeles Laker star Sasha Roberta Vinci, it will be to the consternation of many first tour titles in Japan and Quebec. Then in 2004, her Vujacic. She may have been unlucky in love, but opponents and the relief, albeit privately, of a Wimbledon final triumph over Williams made her an Sharapova hit the jackpot in her commercial affairs. women’s tour left flagging by the absence of Serena overnight international celebrity. One year later, she She made almost $30 million in 2015, according to Williams, probably Sharapova’s only serious rival in became the first Russian woman to be ranked num- Forbes, with $23 million of that coming from the arena-filling business. Sharapova shot to interna- ber one in the world while, in 2006, she won her sec- endorsements and once signed a contract extension tional fame as a giggly 17-year-old Wimbledon win- ond major at the US Open. But in 2007 and 2008, she with Nike worth a reported $70 million. “Beauty sells. I ner in 2004 — the third youngest player to conquer began her long, on-off battle with shoulder trouble. have to realise that’s a part of why people want me. the All England Club’s famous grass courts. She would She still had time to win the 2008 Australian Open I’m not going to make myself ugly,” she said. go on to win the Australian and US Opens while before a second shoulder injury kept her off tour for She owns luxury homes-one in Florida, one in claiming two titles at the French Open, despite the second half of the season, including missing the California-and is making a lucrative career as an entre- famously likening her movement on Roland Garros’s US Open and Beijing Olympics. preneur. In 2012, she launched her own line of candy, crushed red brick to a “cow on ice”. A 10-month absence from the sport, as she recu- ‘Sugarpova’, and during her suspension, signed up for Siberia-born Sharapova first picked up a racquet perated from surgery, saw her ranking slip to 126, but a Harvard Business School course. But she insists that at the age of four in Sochi, where her Belarus-born she was back in 2012, capturing the French Open to retirement was never an option despite her absence parents had settled after escaping the deadly clutch- become the 10th woman to complete a career Grand meaning her world ranking has disappeared, leaving es of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Spotted by Martina Slam and adding Olympic silver to her resume that her at the mercy of wildcards into tournaments. Navratilova, she was encouraged to move to Nick year. Her 2014 French Open title was another high Those free-passes have irked many of her contempo- Bollettieri’s Florida academy, the proving ground of after a dispiriting injury low. More injury troubles fol- raries already suspicious of the Russian’s aloofness. “I Andre Agassi and Monica Seles. Father Yuri and the lowed before the bombshell announcement of her know I am respected,” says an unconcerned seven-year-old Maria left for the US in 1994 with just positive test for meldonium at the 2016 Australian Sharapova.—AFP Maria Sharapova.

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