In Brief:Juniors secure silver hat-trick

BOXING: Three of Ireland's young boxers earned at least a hat-trick of silver medals at the European Junior Championships in Russia.

Dublin's Martin Stokes, Kildare's John Joyce and Galway's Frankie Cleary made today's finals with unanimous decisions in Anapa.

St Michael's Athy BC's Joyce beat Hungary's Mark Kontrecz to set up today's 63kg final with Russia's Shakhin Aslanov.

Stokes went down under a left from Anatoly Zhirnov in the first round yesterday, but the Mulhuddart BC bantam responded magnificently to dominate the Russian in the final two frames.

England's Ryan Garner (Southampton ABC) awaits in today's 54kg. Cleary, who boxes out of the Olympic BC, beat Azeri light-fly Umid Rustamov and faces Bulgaria's Daniel Asenov.

DELAYS AT US PRACTICE

F1: The US Grand Prix began in bizarre circumstances as fog and a mechanical fault with the medical helicopter caused delays in Texas.

The run finally started after a 40-minute stoppage due to fog. However, after just 14 minutes of on-track action proceedings were halted due to technical issues with the medical helicopter. That resulted in a further 34-minute wait prior to the cars returning to the track to complete a session topped by Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari.

After being given the all-clear to race despite an issue with his back, Alonso was fractionally ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button by just 0.028secs.

NO TON FOR TENDULKAR

CRICKET: Sachin Tendulkar failed to make a century on what could be his final appearance for India in his 200th and final Test match in Mumbai.

Tendulkar scored 74 on the second day of the second Test against West Indies at a sold-out Wankhede Stadium.

India were in a strong position at 221 for three when Tendulkar departed; the home side have already established a lead of 39 and a big first-innings advantage could see them not needing to bat again.

STIRLING INSPIRES VICTORY

CRICKET: Paul Stirling hammered a half-century and was named man-of-the-match as Ireland got their World T20 qualifying campaign off to a winning start with a comfortable 32-run victory over Namibia in the UAE.

But the openness of the 16-team tournament was demonstrated on the first day of qualifiers with Bermuda beating Scotland, Kenya losing to Papua New Guinea and Ireland's next opponents, Canada, losing to the USA.

NOVAK'S SERBS CZECH-ED

TENNIS: Honours were even on day one of the Davis Cup Final between Serbia and defending champions Czech Republic as two one-sided singles matches were played out.

On-form Novak Djokovic got Serbia off to a flying start in the best-of-five tie with a straight-sets win, before Tomas Berdych made it 1-1 heading into the doubles today.