TOP OF THE POPS
An intriguing idea, surprisingly not tried before, is given an outing on BBC iPlayer on Saturday, in the form of Jessica Ennis-Hill’s Training Tunes. Hosted by Trevor Nelson, this first in an occasional series is rather like a sporting Desert Island Discs but with the emphasis on the part music has played in helping the participant achieve their goals. Ennis-Hill shares the music that inspires her and the playlist of her favourite training tunes. The Olympic and world heptathlon champion, who is gearing up for the Rio Games, cites tunes from the Spice Girls to Jay-Z and Stormzy among her selections. It is a pleasingly different way of gaining what is an unusually personal insight.
AMERICA’S CUP
The build up to the 2017 America’s Cup continues on Saturday with the fourth round of the World Series in Oman (BT Sport 9.30am). The series began last year with rounds in Portsmouth, Gothenburg and Bermuda and the winners will carry a points advantage into the round robin qualifiers in May next year that will decide the right to challenge Team Oracle USA for the title they have successfully defended once. Britain’s Ben Ainslie was brought in as tactician during that defence in 2013 when Oracle came from 8-1 down to defeat Team New Zealand 9-8. Ainslie now leads the Royal Yacht Squadron challenge, with the Land Rover BAR team. The four-time Olympic champion, who is based on the Solent and has Formula One’s Adrian Newey working on design and engineering, is third in the table behind New Zealand and Oracle with six rounds to come.
CHAMPION ON COURT
Angelique Kerber will compete in her first tour event since winning the Australian Open at the WTA Qatar Open (begins Monday, BT Sport 1, 12.30pm). It is a chance to assess her chances of converting the victory over Serena Williams into further grand slam success. How she copes with the new-found fame, attention and expectation is likely to play a part. She had reshaped her game in the close season, shifting to a more aggressive style from the baseline and it paid off in Melbourne, where she also beat Victoria Azarenka. She has a great chance in Doha with Williams out due to illness and Maria Sharapova absent with an injury.
BIKES BACK ON GRID
Northern Ireland’s Jonathan Rea begins the defence of the World Superbike Championship he won so emphatically last season with 14 wins and 23 podium finishes. The opening meeting is at Phillip Island in Australia, which has hosted the series since 1990, and the 29-year-old continues as a factory rider for Kawasaki. He comes into this season on the new ZX-10R which has been impressively quick in testing but will also face stiff competition from his Kawasaki team-mate, the 2013 champion Tom Sykes. This year the format has changed with a championship race on both Saturday and Sunday. (Eurosport, Saturday, Superpole and race one, 2.15am; Sunday, race two, 2am).
T20 FINALE
Having won the ODI series against South Africa 2-1, England’s women go into the final T20 match against the Proteas with the score level at 1-1. Until this series they had not lost a T20 against South Africa, with a record from 12 meetings of 11 wins and one no-result, the decider (Sunday, Sky Sports 2/5 Live, 7.55am) will doubtless be hard-fought. Another win for England would be the perfect preparation before the World Twenty20 (running alongside the men’s in India next month) at which they can expect to build on an impressive record, having won the inaugural World T20 in 2009 and reached the final of the two subsequent events.
Source:https://www.theguardian.com
