Senna case set to be reopened

Rome: Italy’s highest court has cleared the way for the reopening of a manslaughter trial over the death of Formula One champion Ayrton Senna 10 years ago. The court on Thursday published the reasons for its decision to annul the last verdict handed out in January 2003, ANSA news agency reported, ruling there had been “material errors”.

Under Italian law, a written explanation must be published before a date can be set for the new hearing.

Brazilian Senna, a three times world champion, died after crashing his Williams at Imola on May 1, 1994, during the San Marino Grand Prix.

Team boss Frank Williams, technical director Patrick Head and former chief designer Adrian Newey must now face a new appeals court. Williams, Head and Newey, who is now at McLaren, were acquitted of manslaughter charges after a trial in Bologna in 1997 and that verdict was upheld by an appeals court in 1999.

Deisler not fit enough

Berlin: Germany and Bayern Munich midfielder Sebastian Deisler, absent for almost five months while recovering from depression, must wait longer to make his comeback. Deisler had hoped to be picked for Saturday’s Bundesliga game at Kaiserslautern but Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld said he was not yet ready to return. “He still needs to lose a bit of weight to be physically fit for Bundesliga action,” said Hitzfeld.

The 24-year-old Deisler last played for Bayern in November before seeking psychiatric treatment for depression. He resumed training several weeks ago.

Injury woes

Glasgow: Celtic defender John Kennedy will require surgery and could be out of action for a year after damaging knee ligaments in Scotland's 2-1 friendly international defeat against Romania on Wednesday.

Kennedy was carried off 10 minutes into his senior debut at Hampden Park after a dreadful late challenge by visiting forward Ioan Ganea, who stamped on the 20-year-old’s left knee.

MRI scans have shown that John has sustained multiple injuries to his left knee, which includes damage to his cruciate and lateral ligaments.

Sania shocks top seed

Hyderabad: Sania Mirza shocked top seed Maria Fernanda Alves of Brazil 7-5, 6-3 to enter the semi-finals of the $10,000 Rabat ITF women’s world ranking tournament currently underway at Morocco.

Sania registered the biggest win of her singles career when sh e subdued the Brazalian in a battle which lasted for over two hours, according to information reaching here on Friday.

Sania got off to a flying start taking 3-0 lead in the first set but some strong tactical play from her opponent took the score to 5-5. Sania then held her serve and broke her opponent with two trademark forehands to capture the first set 7-5.

In the second set, Sania broke early to take a comfortable 4-2 lead. Both the players held serves and Sania finally served out the match for a 6-3 verdict in the second and final set.

In the doubles semi-final, Sania and her Slovak partner Katarina Kachlikova went down 7-5, 3-6, 1-6 against the Brazilian pair of Alves and Carle Tiene.

Klim fails to make cut

Sydney: Former 100m butterfly world record holder Michael Klim has missed selection for an individual event at the Athens Olympics after two failures at the Australian national championships on Friday.

Klim withdrew from the event at the national championships on Friday because of injury and decided to concentrate on the 50m freestyle. However, a seventh placing in the 50m freestyle means Klim has only qualified for the relay.

Sport on Screen

Cricket, West Indies vs England: Third Test, Day III live from 7.30pm on TEN Sports
Formula One, Bahrain GP: Qualifying live from 4.25pm on STAR Sports
Soccer, Premier League: Live from 7.25pm on ESPN