Sports in brief - 2011-03-17

Latvian Ernests Gulbis is the only Baltic player remaining in the BNP Paribas Open being played in Indian Wells, California. With a tournament seeding of 31, Gulbis was granted direct entry into the second round, where he defeated Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei, 6-7 (1), 7-6 (6), 6-1. In the third round Gulbis will come up against tournament no.3 seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia. This year three other Baltic players competed alongside Gulbis in what is widely considered the biggest tournament of the year outside of the grand slams. Having received a wildcard entry young Lithuanian Richard Berankis defeated American Alex Bogmolov Jr. 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, in the opening round before succumbing to injury in his second round match, retiring early in the second set when trailing Fernando Verdasco of Spain, 7-5, 2-0. Over in the women’s draw Latvian Anastasija Sevastova won her opening round match by defeating Polina Hercog of Slovenia, 7-5, 7-6 (6), before bowing out to 17th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, 6-2, 7-5. Like Gulbis, Kaia Kanepi of Estonia was granted direct access to the second round on account of her 14th seeding. There, she defeated Argentinean Gisele Dulko 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 before coming unstuck in the third round, falling to 24th seed Yanina Wickmayer of Germany, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.

 The Latvian men’s 4 x 7.5 km biathlon relay team came close to a fairytale finish at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Ranked 23rd going into the race, the Latvian team, made up of Edgars Piksons, Ilmars Bricis, Andrejs Rastorgujevs and Janis Berzins surprised many by sitting in 4th position midway through the race. However, missed shots by Berzins and an inability to keep up with the pace of the faster skiers would prove costly, seeing the Latvians drift back through the field to finish 14th. The Estonian team, consisting of Roland Lessing, Indrek Tobreluts, Kauri Koiv and Priit Viks, finished a position further back in 15th spot. After being lapped, the Lithuanian foursome of Tomas Kaukenas, Karol Dombrovski, Karolis Zlatkauskas and Aleksandr Lavrinovic were not able to finish the race.

Lithuanian National Basketball Association (NBA) star Zydrunas Ilgauskas has missed Miami Heat’s last two games after stepping on a nail in his house. Wearing shoes at the time, the initial prognosis was that Ilgauskas had avoided any major injury. Ilgauskas’ superstar teammate Lebron James told  espn.com that he had been talking to Ilgauskas via the phone and had joked with him about doing home repairs during the season. Miami Heat have yet to state when Ilgauskas will return to action.