Athletics

Johan Wissman set a new Swedish 200m sprint record at the World Athletics Finals in Stuttgart on Saturday. The Swede has spent most of this season knocking chunks of the national 400m record but in Germany he showed that he is also a force to be reckoned with at the shorter distance.

Hitting the finishing line after 20.30 seconds, Wissman came in fourth behind Norway’s Jaysuma Saidy Ndure who shaved 0.36 of a second off his personal best for a winning time of in 19.89.

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American Michelle Perry took the 100m hurdles title after a heavily disrupted race.

Sweden’s European champion Susanna Kallur was one of three athletes disqualified as the race had three false starts before double world champion Perry won in 12.68seconds.

Football

Sweden’s World Cup adventure came to a premature end despite victory over North Korea in the third and final group match.

The 2003 runners-up needed to win by three clear goals to catapult them into the knockout stage after earlier failures left them languishing in third place in their group.

It was the first time in the 16-year history of the World Cup that the Swedes failed to qualify for the quarter-finals for despite downing the Asian number ones 2-1 on Tuesday.

“We put in a really great performance. Even though we won it wasn’t enough to qualify so I feel totally empty right now,” said Swedish captain Victoria Svensson.

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It’s still tight at the top in the race for the Swedish title. Kalmar share top spot with Djurgården after a 3-1 win away to Trelleborg on Sunday.

The two Monday night games could have a major bearing on the destination of the silverware. Third placed Elfsborg play host to Hammarby, while AIK take on Djurgården in a hotly anticipated Stockholm derby.

Allsvenskan: Table and results.

Tennis

Andy Roddick swept the United States into the Davis Cup final on Sunday by defeating Sweden’s Jonas Björkman in straight sets.

Their opponents in the championship match, which will be hosted by the United States, will be Russia who won the two reverse singles to defeat Germany 3-2 in Moscow.

Björkman was called in at the last minute to deputize for Thomas Johansson, who fell ill on Saturday night. Yet despite putting up a brave show, the 35-year-old Swede found it hard to break Roddick’s serve.

Roddick’s 6-2, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 win over the veteran home player in the first of the reverse singles gave Patrick McEnroe’s team an unbeatable 3-1 lead.

The world No.5 won the opening singles on Friday against Joachim Johansson 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/3), 6-3, while Thomas Johansson levelled for the Swedes by beating James Blake 6-4, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

On Saturday Bob and Mike Bryan put the visitors ahead again by winning the doubles against Björkman and Simon Aspelin 7-6 (13/11), 6-2, 6-3.

“It’s a big dream come true and I have so much respect for the Swedish team,” said Roddick.

“I think we have the right team to win and I am exited to have the opportunity.”

Roddick, who lost to Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the US Open before coming to Sweden, always looked to have to much power and pace for Björkman.

The American comfortably won the first set after breaking serve in the fourth game and it was only in the second that Björkman put up much of the defence taking it to a tie-break in which Roddick jumped out into a decisive 3-0 lead,

There was a sense of inevitability about the third set as Roddick wrapped up the match in two hours two minutes taking his country into the Davis Cup final for the first time since 2004.

AFP/The Local