Sports in brief - 2012-01-05

The Latvian men’s U20 ice hockey team has endured a rather forgettable World Championship campaign in Canada, losing all their games at the time of print, with their final game – a must-win relegation group match – taking place against Denmark overnight on Wednesday. Failure to win the game against the Danes will see the Latvians demoted to Division 1 Group A for next season. During the group stage, Latvia lost all four of their group matches, to Sweden, Slovakia, Switzerland and Russia. They were dealt their biggest blow when they played Russia on Dec. 29, finding themselves on the wrong side of a 14-0 thumping. Sent to the relegation round alongside USA, Switzerland and Denmark, Latvia’s fortunes failed to pick up when they took on USA on Monday. The Americans, who were somewhat surprised to find themselves in the relegation round after being touted as a pre-tournament favorite to medal, unleashed their frustrations on their Latvian opponents, piling on 12 goals to Latvia’s two, to leave Latvia in the do-or-die scenario they now find themselves in. At the other end of the tournament, Sweden will face off against Russia in the gold medal game, while hosts Canada take on Finland for bronze.

According to Web site www.greatestsportingnation.com, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have been ranked 14th, 16th and 27th, respectively, on a list that annually ranks countries based on their sporting successes compared to their populations. The Web site takes into account the population of a country and then ranks them accordingly, based on their success on the international sporting stage for the previous calendar year. Each country scores points every time an individual athlete or team finishes in the top eight of a tournament or event deemed by the Web site to be a premier international tournament. Lithuania scored well for finishing fifth at the European basketball championship, but still dropped six places from a year previous when they finished third at World basketball championship. Estonia and Latvia remained in the same positions they had been in a year previous. Jamaica, Norway and New Zealand took out the top three places on the list. When population is not taken into account and success on the world stage is the only variant factored in, USA rules the roost, followed by fellow heavyweights Russia and China.

The 2012 tennis season got underway this week with three tournaments taking place in the southern hemisphere as players begin to prepare for the opening Grand Slam of the year – The Australian Open – which takes place in the final fortnight of January. Playing in Doha, Qatar was Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis. However, the 23-year-old would be unable to repeat his form that had last season carried to him the quarterfinals of the same tournament, losing out to Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 2-6 in his opening match. It is the first time that Gulbis has lost to the sixth-seeded Russian in four encounters. Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi was enduring better fortunes in Brisbane, Australia where she defeated Alexandra Panova of Russia, 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, to advance to the second round. There she came up against tournament seventh seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, also of Russia. The 26-year-old Estonian was ruthless, thumping her more fancied opponent 6-0, 6-3 to move through to the round of 16. Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis and Estonia’s Jurgen Zopp were not to experience the same joy in Brisbane as both players were bundled out in the qualifying tournament.