Rio de Janeiro: Corinthians coach Tite has announced that striker Adriano will not be fit for the upcoming Sao Paulo state football championship.

After missing four team practices, Adriano was given a warning and a fine from the club. The player has promised that he would not miss another practice without permission and said that he intends on finishing out his contract with Corinthians that ends in June, Xinhua reported.

However, the missed practices have not helped Adriano's physical conditioning. Tite said that he has handed the player over to physical trainer Fabio Mahseredjian and Bruno Mazziotti. The coach added that he will wait until the athlete fine-tunes himself.

Moscow: The Czech Republic won the Fed Cup for the first time as an independent nation Sunday after Kveta Peschke and Lucie Hradecka won a deciding doubles to edge Russia 3-2.

The pair came back from a breakdown in the first set to defeat Maria Kirilenko and Elena Vesnina 6-4, 6-2 at Moscow's indoor hardcourt Olympic Stadium.

The Czechs had last won in 1988, when they competed as Czechoslovakia.

The victory was made possible by World No. 2 Petra Kvitova, who recovered from her triumph in last week's season-ending WTA Championships in Istanbul to rout Kirilenko 6-2, 6-2 and battle past Svetlana Kuznetsova in three sets 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Russia's other singles successes came from Kuznetsova, who beat Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-2, and Anna Pavlyuchenkova, who also defeated Safarova, 6-2, 6-4, squaring the tie for the deciding doubles rubber.

It consigned Russia to their first defeat in their last five final appearances.

Since 2004, Russia have beaten France twice, Italy and Spain to take the title.

Belgium were the last nation to overcome Russia in a final — a 2-1 win in Madrid a decade ago.

The 26-year-old Kuznetsova tasted her first Fed Cup final defeat after contributing to 4-0 whitewashes against Spain in 2008 and Italy a year earlier and also a narrower 3-2 triumph over France in 2004.

Vesnina also played in the two latter wins.

It was the closest Fed Cup final since Italy edged Belgium 3-2 in 2006.

Madrid: Valencia moved into third place in the Spanish La Liga football after winning the city derby 2-0 away to local rivals Levante.

The win sees Valencia leapfrog Levante in the table. Levante have now lost their last two matches after a nine-game unbeaten start to the campaign and drop to fourth in the classification.

Jordi Alba opened the scoring after 30 minutes after a beautiful pass from Tino Costa. It was the only moment of pass in a first half littered with fouls as the two local rivals showed there is no love lost between them.

Costa's swerving free kick, which was horribly misjudged by Levante keeper Gustavo Munua, just four minutes after halftime doubled Valencia's lead.

Levante threw all they could at Valencia for the rest of the game, but were unable to break down a well marshalled defence in which Adil Rami and Victor Ruiz were outstanding.

The day kicked off with Mallorca and Sevilla drawing 0-0 in a rain lashed Iberostar Stadium in Mallorca. The result will keep Sevilla in the top six, but Mallorca coach Joaquin Caparros is still looking for a win after five games in charge.

Mallorca had the better of the few chances in the game against a Sevilla side that looked content with a point.

Finally Betis ended a six game losing streak with a 0-0 draw at home to Malaga. Betis deserved more from a poor match than their rivals, but can at least take consolation that they have taken their first point in seven matches.

Quito (Ecuador): Ecuador beat Venezuela 2-0 while Argentina thrashed Chile 4-1 in the opening matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifier.

Playing at home here in front of 40,000 enthusiastic fans, the Ecuadorian side took an early lead by Jaime Ayovi in the 14th minute and extended the lead in the 27th minute with Christian "Chucho" Benitez finding the net.

The visitors never got back in control of the game after the second goal, Xinhua reported.

Ecuador qualified for the first time in the 2002 edition held in Japan and South Korea, and achieved the same feat four years later in Germany.

Venezuela, meanwhile, are still seeking to qualify for the World Cup for the first time and came to Quito upbeat of their chances.

Argentina won quite comfortably against Chile with Gonzalo Higuain scoring a hat-trick and Lionel Messi chipping in with one goal.

Results:

At Montevideo
Uruguay 4 (Suarez 4, Lugano 26, 72, Cavani 35), Bolivia 2 (Cardozo 18, Martins 88-pen)

At Quito
Ecuador 2 (Ayovi 15, Benitez 28), Venezuela 0

At Buenos Aires
Argentina 4 (Higuain 8, 51, 63, Messi 26), Chile 1 (Fernandez 60)

Paris: World 5,000 metres champion Mo Farah of Britain and 800m champion Mariya Savinova of Russia have been named European male and female Athlete Of The Year.

The 28-year-old Somalia-born Farah, who also won the silver in the 10,000m at the World Championships in Daegu in August, won the award ahead of last year's winner Christophe Lemaitre of France, Xinhua reported.

Farah will receive his award along with Savinova at the ceremony in Spain Oct 15.

Farah and Savinova were chosen after fans, media and European Athletics member federations and a panel of experts voted in their favour.

London: England fast bowler James Anderson is disappointed to be left out of the England squad for the ODI against India as he feels he has a point to prove on the slow wickets.

Anderson will not travel for the forthcoming five One-day series against India after England selectors chose to rest the fast bowler.

Anderson, who did not have a successful World Cup in the sub-continent, feels he would have liked to prove that he can do as well on the Indian wickets

"Three months will be a good time for me to rest, but also get in the gym and get strong for what is going to be a tough year," Anderson was quoted as saying in espncricinfo.

"(But) I didn't have a successful World Cup (in India) and it'd be nice to prove I can actually bowl on those wickets.

Anderson also feels his absence could threaten his place in the strong England squad.

"There's so much competition, that's another reason for wanting to go on tour. It's healthy for the squad, in the Test series we've seen that the guys who come in do exceptionally well. But it keeps you on your toes as a bowler," he said.

London: Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has stripped Carlos Tevez of captaincy for trying to quit the club.

The Italian gave the captain's arm band to Vincent Kompany for the first three games while Tevez was regaining to fitness, The Sun reported.

"The captain is Vinnie Kompany. It is simple. Carlos wanted to leave the club in the summer for family reasons. I respect his opinion about wanting to leave but Carlos is still here because we didn't find a solution for him. He has accepted it. Carlos is a clever man," Mancini said.

Mancini, however, praised Tevez.

"He's a fantastic player for us, someone who can score 20 goals a season. Carlos trains very well and works very well," said Mancini.

City have scored 12 goals in their three wins so far this season but Mancini still finds things to moan about.

"I think we need to improve. We started the season very well but for example, against Tottenham we cannot concede a goal like that. I think United are two or three yards ahead of us," he said.

Southampton : England defeated India by seven wickets in the rain-hit second One-day International of the NatWest series at the Rose Bowl here Tuesday.

The match had been reduced to 23 overs a side after a delayed start due to rain.

Put to bat first, India scored 187 for eight with the help of Ajinkya
Rahane's 54 and Suresh Raina's blistering 40 off 19 balls.

But England Captain Alastair Cook-led England reached the target of 188 in 22.1 overs.

Cook led the run-chase with 80 off 63 balls.

The first ODI had been called off due to rain.

England lead the ODI series 1-0 after winning the second ODI.

New York: Ninth seed Samantha Stosur advanced into the fourth round at US Open tennis with an epic 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 7-5 victory over 24th seed Nadia Petrova in Friday's night session.

The big Russian pushed hard and forced a tense clash lasting three hours and 16 minutes, the longest women's match at the event since third-set tie-breakers were introduced.

Stosur won the contest on her fifth match point and the result meant the Australian progressed beyond the third round at a Grand Slam for the first time this year. She will next meet Russian 25th seed Maria Kirilenko, who routed American Christina McHale 6-2, 6-3, for a spot in the round of 16.

After dropping her opening service game, Stosur played some scorching tennis to jump to a 5-2 lead and served for the first set at 5-3.

However, she wobbled and was unable to take advantage of three set-points as Petrova fought her way back for a tiebreak.

Stosur again looked on top at 4-2 in the tiebreak but Petrova captured three straight points to take back the momentum.

Stosur got even by reeling off the next three points to take the set.

The Australian continued to pile the pressure on her opponent's serve and captured a break in the fifth game.

Serving for the match at 5-4, Stosur had her problems again with two wild shanks and a double fault.

The Australian pulled out two match points once but Petrova responded by playing some stunning tennis to level the scores at 5-5.

Stosur saved two set points before Petrova forced the contest into a third set with an ace.

Gaining in confidence, Petrova broke Stosur's serve in the third game of the final set and held a 4-2 lead.

Stosur broke back in the eighth game to level the scores and saved a break point for a 5-4 lead.

With the tension ramping up on both players, Petrova survived two more match points to even the ledger at 5-5.

Stosur, leading 6-5, finally won the encounter on her fifth match point when Petrova netted her return.

In earlier matches, World No.2 Vera Zvonareva also squeezed into the fourth round after a hard fight against Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues in a 6-4, 7-5 victory.

Zvonareva will next take on Germany's Sabine Lisicki, who earned a 6-0, 6-1 victory over American Irina Falconi.

The 2006 champion Maria Sharapova suffered a surprising defeat to Italy's Flavia Pennetta, who took down the third-seeded Russian 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

Sharapova was the runner-up at Wimbledon earlier this summer and was coming off a title in Cincinnati last month.

The 26th-seeded Pennetta will follow her hard-earned upset with a fourth-round match against Chinese Peng Shuai, who ousted German Julia Goerges 6-4, 7-6(1).

Daegu (South Korea): Veronica Campbell-Brown turned the tables on Americans Carmelita Jeter and Allyson Felix in one fell swoop, winning the women?s 200 metres gold medal Friday at the World Championships.

The Jamaican sprint darling clocked a season?s best time of 22.22 seconds in the Final at the Daegu Stadium.

Jeter, the newly-minted 100 metres world champion, was bidding for a rare sprint double, but had to settle for silver with a time of 22.37 seconds, and Felix, the four-time defending world 200 metres champion, had to be content with bronze in a time of 22.42 sec.

Campbell-Brown, who finished second behind Jeter in the 100 metres, is the two-time defending Olympic 200 metres champion, and was runner-up over the distance at the last two World Championships.