Wayne McCullough has pulled out of his WBC super bantamweight title challenge against Erik Morales because of injury.
Promoter Bob Arum revealed that McCullough injured his back in training and said he would be replaced by Juan Carlos Ramirez of Mexico.
McCullough lost to Naseem Hamed in a WBO featherweight title fight last year. Arum said Ramirez had been training for a May bout in Mexico when he got the call to replace McCullough.
Tennis: Carlos Moya fought back after a fidgety start to ease into the quarter-finals of the Monte Carlo Open yesterday. Moya slowly but steadily improving on the surface, beat in-form Moroccan Karim Alami 6-4 6-1.
The Spaniard, who was world number one briefly this year, struggled against Alami, trailing 41 in the first set. But he recovered to play the imaginative, solid tennis which helped him a win in Monte Carlo last year, sweeping eight successive games as he finished off the Moroccan in just over an hour.
The main threat to Moya's ambitions might come from Marcelo Rios and Gustavo Kuerten. Rios beat Hicham Arazi and Kuerten overcame his Brazilian compatriot Fernando Meligeni, both in straight sets.
Gaelic Games: Clare guaranteed themselves at least a playoff when they trounced Tipperary 4-9 to 1-5 in the round-robin series of the Munster minor football championship at Kilmallock last night.
Clare need only a point from their remaining game against Limerick on May 4th to qualify to meet Cork.
Clare's first goal last night came from David Monahan and another by Dave Caffrey helped them to lead 2-4 to 0-4 at halftime with Tipperary's first point coming after 15 minutes by Ken Mulryan.
Clare had second-half goals from Monaghan which made it 37 to 0-4 and Stephen Hickey had their fourth goal. A minute from the end Tipperary had their goal from Colm O'Brien, who scored at the second attempt after his penalty had been saved.
Clare: D O'Brien; T McGannell, E Keane, S Rouine; N Considine, R Finn, M Kelly; R Ford, J McInerney (0-1); O Kane, S Madigan, D Monahan (2-3); B Fitzpatrick (0-1), S Hickey (1-3), D Caffrey (1-1).
Tipperary: D Breen; N Sheedy, P Foley, S Maher; T King, O Kearney, K O'Brien; N Fitzgerald, T Doyle (0-2); C O'Brien (1-1), K Mulryan (0-2), B Brooks, C McCahill, J Keane, S McKeogh. Referee: D Flynn (Waterford).
Motor Sport: Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher received a boost to his title hopes when he beat David Coulthard in a McLaren in testing in Jerez in Spain yesterday.
In a major test session involving all but the Arrows team, Schumacher clocked one minute 24.63 seconds to Coulthard's 1:24.90.
Hakkinen was not testing and Schumacher and Coulthard were comfortably ahead of nearest rival Johnny Herbert, who clocked 1:25.37 in a Stewart. Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen was fourth in 1:25.75 followed by the Prost of Jarno Trulli in 1:26.16 and Alexander Wurz in a Benetton, who clocked 1:26.21.
Tennis: Fed Cup-bound Yvonne Doyle achieved another first in her career in Croatia when reaching the last 16 on clay in the $10,000 tournament in Hvar.
Doyle, who plays for Ireland at the La Manga club in Spain next week, is showing good form on the slow surface at an opportune time. She beat top-seeded Argentinian Luciana Masante, ranked 280th in the world, 7-5 7-5.
