PATCHED up after an earlier spill, World Superbike veteran Troy Bayliss produced the fastest lap to take pole position for this weekend’s race at Phillip Island.

Bayliss smoked his Ducati around the meandering track to dip under the lap record with a superpole time of 1min 31.493sec.

The 38-year-old’s preparation had been disrupted during qualifying when he slid from his bike at turn 11 two minutes from the end of the session.

Bayliss was taken to the medical unit where he had eight stitches in a gash in his left elbow.

There had been concern in his camp after he broke his collarbone during a test session fall here seven weeks ago.

Bayliss outpaced pole position king, compatriot Troy Corser, who was second quickest, by more than half a second.

Corser, who holds the lap record here set during last year’s round, has amassed 41 pole positions in his career.

Third on the grid was Bayliss’ Italian Ducati teammate, Michel Fabrizio.

Australian Honda duo Russell Holland and Karl Muggridge will start from ninth and 12th places on the grid respectively.

Bayliss, who won the Superbike World championship in 2001 and 2006, is in his final year in the series.

He leads going into the two races after winning the season-opening round in Qatar.

He holds a two-point lead over Italian Max Biaggi, who had a disastrous superpole run.

In the one-lap shootout between the top 16 riders from qualifying, the gear lever on Biaggi’s Ducati broke, forcing him into the garage and relegating him to 16th on the grid.

Corser said a problem with the qualifying tyre he used had slowed him while Bayliss predicted a fierce battle this weekend.

"Even though Troy (Corser) said he didn’t get to do a lap on his (correct) qualifying tyre, deep down I thought he was the man who was going to be second," Bayliss said.

"I’m sure that if he had have got out there he would have got closer, or maybe pipped me, you never know.

"But we always end up pretty fast here and pretty close so we think it’s going to be a good day’s racing."

Bayliss said his crash had prevented him doing a long run in preparation for the two races.

"We did a long run yesterday afternoon and we planned to do another one today but the crash I had put an end to that.

"Michel did it instead and did quite a lot of laps so we’re reasonably happy with the tyre that we have.

"The first few laps are going to be pretty exciting up to about lap eight or 12 and then it’s going to be the same situation where somebody’s tyre could go off.

"It’s definitely going to get slower - at this time of the year at Phillip Island it’s always slower in the afternoon.

"If we can get on the bike at nine o’clock in the morning we can go faster in the warm-up in the morning so that would be interesting if there’s no wind," he said.

Meanwhile, Australians dominated the Supersport category with former MotoGP rider Andrew Pitt stealing pole position.

The Queenslander stopped the clock at 1min 34.592sec on his Honda, ahead of the Honda of Josh Brookes from western Sydney with Newcastle Yamaha rider Broc Parkes third.

Brookes won the World Supersport race here in 2004 - as a wildcard entry.

AAP

Source: foxsports.com.au

THE mounting pressure on Avram Grant was reflected in an uncharacteristically emotional outburst with the Chelsea boss hitting back furiously over the criticism he has faced in the wake of the club’s League Cup final defeat to Tottenham.

Although Chelsea remain in the hunt for the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup trophies, Grant has had to contend with his leadership qualities being widely questioned, reports of splits within the Chelsea squad and claims that Barcelona boss Frank Rijkaard is being lined up to replace him at the end of the season.

It has all been a bit too much for Jose Mourinho’s 52-year-old successor and, at the end of a long week, he let fly at his critics in scathing terms.

"Just because we lost one game… now, this is wrong, that is wrong," he fumed.

"I don’t want to defend myself about this. The spirit is very good in the team, the situation is very good with the team. We’re sorry about what happened against Tottenham. I’m sorry, but we did a good job in the previous five months."

Grant’s assistant Henk ten Cate confirmed this week that he had been involved in a training ground row with captain John Terry on the eve of the League Cup final.

But the manager angrily insisted that the incident had been blown out of all proportion.

"No team in the world is without fighting. Sometimes it happens. Everything was okay a minute later. They shook hands, hugged."

Grant went on to suggest that he had been treated unfairly by the English media, sections of which have questioned his credentials to succeed Mourinho.

"I respect the media in England - even though you gave me no credit at the beginning, but since then I’ve heard a lot of lies," he said.

"Roman Abramovich has never told me one player that he needs to play, never told me to pick the team this way or that. I’m in charge. Please, you need to respect my professionalism.

"You’re (the media) trying to hurt the team, hurt the club because we lost one game."

Grant is resigned to a fresh round of speculation if Chelsea, who have lost ground in the title race following recent draws with Liverpool and Portsmouth, fail to beat West Ham at Upton Park.

"If we lose tomorrow… wait with the knife a little bit. When a new player comes to my team, I give him two months to show what he can do.

"You didn’t behave too nicely. Now I don’t respect you too much because we lost one game and you’ve taken it too far. I don’t like it. You hurt my players, you hurt the club and this is not the right way."

Grant went on to reject suggestions that some players had been critical of his team selection after the game and blamed agents for leaking harmful rumours to the media.

"I agree with Sir Alex Ferguson. Agents came to football to make things easier for the players. But sometimes they link things to the papers they don’t need to and sometimes it hurts the team."

AAP

Source: foxsports.com.au

CENTRE Justin Brown’s days as a Brisbane player seem numbered, with coach Joey Wright lamenting a lack of leadership in the club’s big-man department.

With Brisbane’s reign as NBL champions over following a 115-112 overtime loss in Thursday night’s semi-final against Melbourne, Wright will soon sit down with Bullets general manager Jeff Van Groningen to discuss next season’s playing roster.

Talks will centre on off-contract pair Brown and Dusty Rychart.

Import Rychart is expected to be offered a new deal but Brown’s future is clouded after a season riddled by injury and inconsistency.

Brown and New Zealand international Craig Bradshaw were brought to the Bullets this season in the hope they could cover the gaping hole left by the retirement of centre Mark Bradtke, a key member of Brisbane’s championship unit last season.

Bradshaw delivered in the second half of the season but Brown, 27, failed to have the same impact.

"We need more experience from that (centre) position," Wright said.

"Hogie (Bradtke) brought us more experience and also gave us great leadership.

"When you can get leadership out of your five (centre) position, you’re going to really be good. We had that last year with Mark and suffered this year not having that."

Despite Wright being pleased with the Bullets’ effort to reach the last four following the departures of Bradtke and Stephen Black (Cairns), and talisman Sam Mackinnon’s long-term knee injury, he said the season was a failure.

"In light of everything, we didn’t win the championship, so anything short of that was a failure," he said.

Source: foxsports.com.au

OLGA Govortsova reached her first WTA Tour final by defeating last year’s runner-up Shahar Peer 6-3 3-6 6-4 in the semi-finals of the WTA Memphis tournament.

The No.5 seed from Belarus beat No.3 seed Peer for the second consecutive time.

"It feels really good to get to my first final in only my second year on the WTA Tour," the 19-year-old Govortsova said.

She advances to the final where she will face former world No.1 Lindsay Davenport, who easily beat New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic 6-0 6-3 in the other semi-final.

Govortsova was looking forward to meeting Davenport in the final because the former Olympic champion and three-time grand slam winner was her idol when she was young.

"I want to play against Lindsay because she was favourite player growing up," Govortsova said. "I like to watch her play."

Govortsova also beat Israel’s Peer in the second round of last year’s Stanford tournament. Her previous best showing in a WTA event was a semi-final berth in Tashkent in 2007.

In the opening set, Peer broke in the opening game and then lost serve in the sixth and eighth games to drop the set.

Govortsova, who saved match point in her second-round match against Renata Voracova, fell behind 5-1 to Peer in the second set. Peer eventually served it out to win 6-3.

The Belarussian regained the momentum in the third set by breaking for a 3-1 lead. She broke at 0-40 to clinch the win in the final game.

On the men’s side, Steve Darcis, of Belgium, routed Germany’s Benjamin Becker 6-1 6-0 in an early quarter-final match.

Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman also advanced, with a 1-6 6-2 7-6 (8-6) victory over American Donald Young.

Agence France-Presse

Source: foxsports.com.au

NBL boss Chuck Harmison admits he has “dropped the ball” in the promotion of the much-maligned national competition.

But he’s not seeking excuses, just solutions.

Harmison and his staff have fought a losing battle this season, with the once mighty NBL now almost an afterthought on an Australian sporting calendar dominated by the four football codes and cricket.

In what should be the NBL’s period of greatest exposure with the grand final series less than a week away, media coverage is dominated by the upcoming NRL and AFL seasons.

Despite most NBL clubs having increased supporter numbers, both Brisbane and Melbourne failed to attract crowds of more than 3000 to play-off matches this week.

It frustrates Harmison, who has also had to play second fiddle to the increasingly popular A-League in recent months.

"We’ve certainly got to do more to make ourselves attractive to all media outlets, but how we do that, I’m not sure," Harmison said.

"If we spent and advertised our game more and promoted our superstars like we used to do in the old days, we’d see crowds on the rise again.

"The clubs have got to do it too because they’re the ones that will benefit the most from gate revenue, but the league certainly has dropped the ball in the last couple of years.

"We need to get back on the front foot. To do that, we need to do a national campaign of some sort to promote the sport.

"It’s just a matter of finding the money to do it effectively."

The NBL’s biggest problem child is the Sydney market, where, despite the Kings being arguably the competition’s most recognisable team, crowds are embarrassingly low.

It’s a similar case for the Kings’ crosstown rivals, West Sydney Razorbacks, who also have little support.

Until late this week the Kings were no certainties to be around next season, with team owner Tim Johnston owing the NBL big dollars.

But with the debts finally settled the Kings are safe - for now.

However, Harmison did not rule out a future merger of the Kings and the Razorbacks if an upcoming review of the sport in Australia recommended only one Sydney team.

"A merger hasn’t been discussed on an official level and I don’t think it has been discussed on an unofficial level," he said.

"Two teams in Sydney is what we’ve got right now, but we’re doing a fairly major review of the whole sport.

"Not to pre-empt what the findings are, but one of the recommendations may be to have one team in Sydney."

With the release of the recommendations not expected until late June, the NBL is set to remain a 13-team competition in season 2008-2009.

Teams will again play 30 matches each, but Harmison virtually guaranteed the heavily criticised play-off system would be revamped. However, the finals series could still involve eight sides.

"This year you’d think eight teams was pretty legitimate. You would have been hard-pressed to say the (eighth-placed) Gold Coast (15 wins, 15 losses) didn’t deserve a play-off spot," he said.

"If you go back to six or seven teams, you’ve got to make a format that works, you’ve got to do it in the time frame that we’ve got and you’ve got to allow enough time in between games to do a bit of marketing and promotion."

Harmison said regardless of what improvements the NBL made, the halcyon days of 10,000-plus crowds were probably gone for good.

"Our sport is a 5000, 6000-seat venue sport. It works better in those venues," he said.

"In the good old days we grew too big too quickly. We took our eyes off some of the fundamentals we were doing really well like school clinics and junior development, and getting out to promote the game.

"Everybody got professional really quickly. Everybody got a little bit precious. Players became full-time and spent nine hours a day in the gym doing weights and shooting the basketball, and forgot about the fans and the kids.

"The other codes got smart. They learned from what we did in the ’80s."

Source: foxsports.com.au