BUENOS AIRES: Stopping Lionel Messi is the primary concern of South American teams facing Argentina in the World Cup qualifiers. This week it is Uruguay’s turn.

Argentina defend their lead in the South American group at home to Uruguay in Mendoza on Friday (Saturday India time). After seven matches they have 14 points, one more than Colombia and Ecuador and two ahead of Uruguay and Chile.

They will be looking to make amends for a poor performance in their last match, a 1-1 draw with Peru in Lima where Messi, who had scored 10 goals in his previous six internationals, had one of his quietest games for his country.

South American champions Uruguay want a second successive upset over their neighbours after their Copa America quarter-final victory on penalties last year.

Uruguay’s coach Oscar Washington Tabarez does not believe in man-marking Messi, but rather in preventing Argentina from functioning in support of the Barcelona ace.

“Messi is a great player, among the best seen in the history of football…so I’m not going to say too much about that because it would be redundant,” Tabarez told reporters in Montevideo on Tuesday.

“But Messi has a team around him trying to ensure be shows all his potential.

“So we have to work on and counter everything Argentina does for the ball to get to Messi and after Messi takes it try to mark him.”

The Uruguayans, World Cup semifinalists in 2010, need to recover from a poor September when they lost 4-0 away to Colombia and only managed a 1-1 draw at home to Ecuador.

Captain Diego Lugano believes this double away fixture will be the hardest trip for Uruguay, who play Bolivia at high altitude in La Paz next week, in the 16-match qualifying series.

“These are key (qualifying) points, much more so after the last double-header when we didn’t do well,” Lugano said.

“We’re facing two matches that are surely the most difficult of the qualifying series.

“An Argentina-Bolivia sequence (away) is very hard and we’re practically obliged to bring back some points,” the central defender said.

Argentina, who beat Paraguay 3-1 at home then drew 1-1 away to Peru last month, welcome back Sergio Agüero but have lost fellow striker Ezequiel Lavezzi to injury.

Midfielder Javier Mascherano said good results against Uruguay and then Chile away in Santiago four days later would put Argentina well on course for a berth in the 2014 finals in Brazil.

“If we can get six out of six points it would be ideal and we would be well on track to qualifying, not certain but on the right track,” Mascherano said.

“For us, the match against Uruguay is a classic. The last ones we have played against them were very tight (and) if we win we’d go with more confidence to Chile.”

The Chileans, whose coach Claudio Borghi is serving a four-match suspension for dissent, first travel to play Ecuador in the rarefied air of Quito nearly 3,000 metres above sea level on Friday.

Colombia, with striker Falcao in red-hot scoring form, are at home to bottom team Paraguay in Barranquilla and Bolivia, at home in both fixtures, host Peru in La Paz. (Reuters)

Centurion: Veteran all-rounder Azhar Mahmood grabbed five wickets and struck a half-century as Aukland Aces thrashed Hampshire by eight wickets to qualify for the main draw of the Champions League Twenty20 tournament, here on Wednesday.

In a night match, Yorkshire also qualified for the main round after beating Trinidad and Tobago.

Mahmood made inroads into the Hampshire top-order as Auckland bundled out the English county team for a modest 121 in 20 overs.

Mahmood then smashed an unbeaten 31-ball-55 to steer his side to a comfortable win with 33 balls to spare.

The Pakistani hit five sixes and four boundaries during his innings.

Auckland has thus become the first team to qualify for the main tournament, starting on Saturday. The New Zealand T20 champions have won both their qualifying matches, having beaten Sialkot Stallions on Tuesday.

Two teams – one each from Pool 1 and 2, will join the eight other teams for the main competition.

The result of Wednesday’s match means that the final match of the Pool 1 between Sialkot Stallions and Hampshire has been reduced to a dead rubber as the two teams are now out of race for a spot in the competition.

Mahmood, who is now a British passport holder ripped apart the Hampshire top-order when he removed James Vince (11) and Jimmy Adams (0) in a space of four balls. PTI

Yorkshire rode on Gary Ballance and Adil Rashid’s batting heroics to qualify for the main draw with a comfortable six-wicket win over Trinidad and Tobago.

Chasing Trinidad’s 148 for nine, Ballance (64 off 37) and Rashid (33 off 27) lifted Yorkshire from a difficult position with an unbeaten 103-run partnership fifth wicket partnership.

Ballance struck as many as six sixes and two fours while Rashid decorated his innings with three hits to the fence and one over it.

Ravi Rampaul and Samuel Badree returned with identical figures of one for 22 for the Caribbean outfit.

With two wins from as many games, Yorkshire stormed into the main draw of the tournament from Pool 2. Trinidad have crashed out of the event after just one outing, which means their final match againsr Uva becomes inconsequential.

Openers Phil Jacques (6) and skipper Andrew Gale (2) failed to provide any significant contribution for the English outfit and perished in two overs.

Joe Root (16) and Adam Lyth (18) both got starts but failed to capitalise on them and became victims of Yannick Ottley and Rayad Emrit, leaving Yorkshire’s chase in disarray at 51-4.

But if the Caribbean players thought they had a grip over the match, they were in for a rude shock as Ballance and Adil Rashid had other plans. (PTI)

SHILLONG: The All Meghalaya Karate-Do Association in collaboration with the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs is organising the 21st State Karate Championship at JN Sports Complex, Polo, on October 12 and 13.

SHANGHAI: Roger Federer ignored recent death threats from a Chinese blogger and won his opening match at the Shanghai Masters on Wednesday, beating qualifier Lu Yen-Hsun 6-3, 7-5 in the second round.

Federer said he was aware that the blogger had recently issued an apology.

The 17-time Grand Slam champion has had heavy security surrounding him at all times since arriving in Shanghai.

”I felt fine” Federer said. ”There was maybe one quick thought. I saw one of the bodyguards outside of the court. I thought, still around, obviously. I have bodyguards every time I play a match on a center court, which is normal.

”Once the match started, got underway, I never thought about it again.”

Federer saved the one break point he faced and broke serve once in each set to secure his path to the third round. He’ll next face 13th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka.

”I thought it was a good match for me,” Federer said. ”Obviously, not having been broken is a good thing early on in a tournament. You hope it sets a trend for more to come.”

Novak Djokovic also advanced, beating Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 6-3, 6-2. Two-time defending champion Andy Murray received a walkover into the third round after the withdrawal of Florian Mayer because of a rib injury.

Sam Querrey of the United States rallied past 14th-seeded Kei Nishikori 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 in another second-round match.

Djokovic won the China Open in Beijing last week for his fourth title of the year and 32nd of his career. He has won 66 matches this season, the most of any player on tour.

Djokovic didn’t offer Dimitrov a break point opportunity and never lost more than one point in any service game. He also served four games at love.

”Very pleased with my serving in Beijing and obviously the first match today,” Djokovic said. ”So that’s something that I’ve been working on, obviously. Relying on the serve in today’s tennis is a big advantage. So I try to get as many free points as possible. It helped me a lot to defeat my opponent.”

If Djokovic wins in Shanghai and Federer loses before the quarterfinals, the Serb would reclaim the No. 1 ranking next week.

Murray has a 9-0 record after winning finals against David Ferrer last year and Federer in 2010. The third-ranked player from Scotland also won the Olympic gold medal at the London Games and a title in Brisbane this year.

Murray had short notice about Mayer’s injury and withdrawal.

”I went to the gym this moning in the hotel, and he was in the gym at the same time,” Murray said. ”I didn’t know until 15, 20 minutes ago.”

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat fellow Frenchman Benoit Paire 7-6 (7), 7-5.

For the second straight day at the tournament, a match went to three tiebreaker sets. Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus upset the 12th-seeded Milos Raonic of Canada 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 7-6 (3).

Nishikori won the opening set against Querrey before fading. He sought a medical timeout for a right ankle injury that he sustained last week when he won the Japan Open.

”It’s disappointing, but I was close to a win even with this injury,” Nishikori said. (AP)

LONDON: Rafael Nadal has no timeline for his return to competitive tennis but on Tuesday the world number four did not completely rule out the possibility of returning from injury in time for next month’s Davis Cup and ATP World Tour finals.

Nadal has not played since suffering a shock second-round Wimbledon defeat to Czech Lukas Rosol in June and has yet to return to the practise court, but the 26-year-old Spaniard left the door open for a comeback before the end of the season.

He conceded, however, that the chances of appearing at the ATP World Tour final in 26 days or helping Spain against the Czech Republic in the November 16-18 Davis Cup final were remote.

“Impossible, no. But difficult, yes,” Nadal said during a conference call to promote his participation in an exhibition match against Juan Martin del Potro in March.

“I want to go day-by-day, I go every day to the gym, the swimming pool to continue with my recovery. I am trying not to think that far.”

Nadal missed the London Olympics and US Open as he fights to undo some of the damage inflicted on his fragile knees from competing on hard courts.

Nadal spends his days in the gym, swimming and undergoing therapy treatments but, while he acknowledged feeling some improvements, he is not ready to hit the practise court.

“It has been very, very tough for me because I feel that my knee didn’t improve in the right way … but the last couple of weeks the improvement in my knee is something that I can really feel,” said Nadal. “That helps me to keep working hard doing every day what I have do.

“I am working to try to comeback to practise on the tennis court in a not very long period of time.”

Progress has been slow, but Nadal maintained he is not going to rush his return.

“I can imagine when I come back I will need time practise and practise more and more every day, maybe that will take one month and a half.

“I don’t know, the most important thing is to continue with the treatment.

“When I don’t feel nothing, hopefully that will happen soon, I will comeback on the tennis court.” (Reuters)

New Delhi: Having suffered heartbreak at the London Games, Indian boxer Vijender Singh has now decided to shift from his pet 75kg category to 81kg for the World Championships, to be held in Kazakhstan in 2013.

For the Beijing Games bronze medallist, the World Championships will the first test in his new weight category before the Asian Games and the Olympics.

“There is nothing much this year. I will be participating in the World championship next year in the 81kg category,” Vijender said here on Wednesday.

Asked what prompted him to switch his weight category, Vijender said: “I have been fighting in the 75kg division for so long. I wanted to make a change.”

Vijender will be skipping the nationals in Hyderabad from October 30-November 4 that would have been an ideal way of warming up in the 81kg section.

“No, I am not participating in the Nationals though I will certainly be going to watch bouts,” he said.

Vijender lost in the quarterfinals of the London Olympics to cap a disappointing performance by the men’s boxing contingent – though Mary Kom won a bronze for the women.

The Bhiwani boxer is India’s first Olympic boxing medallist – winning a bronze at the 2008 Games. (IANS)

NEW YORK: Lance Armstrong and his team ran the most sophisticated doping programme in sport according to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USDA), which released its report on the case against the US Postal cycling team on Wednesday.

USADA said it was sending the report, which was more than 1,000 pages long and contained the sworn testimony of 26 people, including 15 riders, to the International Cycling Union (UCI), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), before making it available on its website.

“The evidence also includes direct documentary evidence including financial payments, emails, scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong,” the USADA said in a statement.

Armstrong has denied cheating and never failed a doping test but the seven-times Tour de France winner was banned for life by USADA in August after announced he would not fight the charges. (Reuters)