It was Sargsian’s game that now appeared ragged, his volley particularly suspect, and Richardson was able to hold serve for the remainder of the set to claim a hard-earned victory.In the second round today he will meet his friend, Tim Henman, whose status as the No 4 seed earned him a first round bye.If Richardson’s start was poor it was textbook compared to Lee’s. The comparison seemed valid in the opening set, for though Sargsian my lack Andre Agassi’s dollars in the bank, not to mention his pounds round the midriff, he certainly displayed some of the Las Vegan’s shot-making, notably a series of blistering service returns that left Richardson helpless.Trailing 5-2 the Briton appeared doomed, but then finally found his range, particularly with his service and forced a tie break.The first eight points went with service but Sargsian forced the break with a lovely quick forehand down the line and went on to win 7-4.Richardson’s response was splendid, however, forcing an early break in the second set and then capturing Sargsian’s serve again with a ferocious backhand cross-court pass.Richardson took the set By now Richardson was in commanding form. Despite making a shocking start, Richardson contributed to the feel good factor by responding in a manner completely at odds with the stereotype rank and file British tennis player to beat Sargis Sargsian 6-7, 6-2, 6-4 in the first round of the Stella Artois championships. For Richardson, who is ranked 172 places below Sargsian, it was a triumph as much of fighting spirit and mental toughness as technical superiority.
An encouraging afternoon for the home crowd continued to 20 minutes later when Martin Lee came back from losing the first seven games of his match with Andrei Olhovskiy, the Russian grass-court specialist.Richardson could hardly have been less impressive in the opening exchanges, the 6ft 7in left hander moving slowly and missing easy volleys as he trailed 4-1 and 5-2.Sargsian is of Armenian stock, operates out of America and sports a goatee all of which brought to mind another Armenian American. Both Bosman and Van der Bergh will be available for Mpumalanga’s next game. Meanwhile, Weir must decide whether to bring a civil law suit against Bosman whose actions may well keep the Scotsman out of rugby until Christmas..

A victory over Armenia may not quite rank with those over Australia and Germany in the last few days, but in his own small way Andrew Richardson did his bit for the British sporting summer here yesterday. To add insult to injury, 60 per cent of Van der Bergh’s fine was suspended pending good conduct until December
Explaining the decision of a four-man tribunal to fine both second rows little more than a handful of peanuts, Hennie Erasmus, the Mpumalanga president, said: “The tribunal ruled that as both players had already been penalised by the match referee, neither could be charged with contravention of Rule 26 of the laws of the game”The union initiated the inquiry in terms of their contract with the players and it is the established policy of the union to combat and eradicate all forms of indisciplined play.”Fran Cotton, the Lions manager, declined to comment last night; in all likelihood, he was too angry to speak. Both players were fined, neither was suspended and the judgement left the tourists flabbergasted. Bosman must fork out 10,000 rand, the equivalent of around pounds 1,400, for effectively deconstructing Doddie Weir’s left knee with a cold blooded and unprovoked stamp.

Van der Bergh, who was leaving indelible marks on British tourists as far back as 1994, was fined half that amount for trampling on Rob Wainwright’s unprotected head. Penrith also seemed to have failed at the other end when Jeff Wittenberg charged down Brad Drew’s effort, but the ball bounced back to Domic who went over for the vital points almost on the hooter.The Bulls coach, Matthew Elliott, criticised the refereeing of David Campbell after a rugged match at Odsal. “A lot of my players have thick lips and sore necks from the tackling out there,” he said.Bradford Bulls: Spruce; Calland, Loughlin, Peacock, Scales; Paul, Tomlinson; Reihana, Lowes, McDermott, Forshaw, S McNamara, Bradley. Substitutes used: Wittenberg, Graham, Knox, AndersonPenrith Panthers: Jorgensen; Williams, Domic, Girdler, Beckett; Carter, Gower; P Adamson, Farrar, C McNamara, M Adamson, Gall, Brown. Substitutes used: Drew, Boyd, Thompson, Alexander.Referee: D Campbell (Widnes)..

The great and good of the Mpumalanga Rugby Football Union took possession of liberal quantities of whitewash last night and effectively painted over the gruesome attacks carried out by their two locks, Marius Bosman and Elandre van der Bergh, on the Lions during a depressingly violent encounter in Witbank six days ago. From that point the Panthers looked ominously strong.Darren Brown knocked on for Penrith when it seemed that pressure was about to pay off, but he soon made amends taking a return pass from Matt Adamson to tie the scores.Bradford had one fleeting chance in the game when McNamara missed narrowly with a drop goal attempt five minutes from time. It began when Craig Gower picked up Spruce’s grubber in his own 25 and sent Girdler the length of the field for a try he converted himself. They addressed that in injury time, again kicking early in the tackle counts, Glen Tomlinson’s boot sending Stuart Spruce over by the flag.Bradford’s domination continued into the second half and Penrith’s victory gallop came out of the blue.

James Lowes served the ball up for Danny Peacock, whose power and determination got him over the line for a try, again improved by McNamara.On balance, the Bulls should have been more than six points ahead as half-time approached. Ryan Girdler landed the equalising conversion.Bradford thought they had retaken the lead when when Graeme Bradley escaped them to kick behind the try-line, but the video replay proved that Matt Calland had not forced the ball down.The screen came up with an altogether more popular verdict two minutes later. Bradford went agonisingly close to giving Britain its second World Club Championship win of the day last night before being beaten by a try run through an exhausted and ragged defence in the last minute. It was a cruel finale to a match Bradford had seemed to control for 50 minutes, but which had been wrested away from them by the sheer resilience of the team from Sydney’s far west.
The Bulls began with a snort and a roar, gaining an early lead through Steve McNamara’s penalty and capitalising further on their dominance when the same player opened up the Penrith defence on the left with a superb pass, leaving Paul Loughlin to usher Jon Scales over in the corner.Penrith had not had a serious attack but, when they did, they scored, carving through Bradford with deceptive ease via Steve Carter and Craig Gower for Sid Domic to slip an inside pass to Peter Jorgensen. Pakistan, England’s opponents in Breda on Thursday and in the same World Cup group, could be the most interesting match.ENGLAND SQUAD (v Netherlands, Test match, Groningen, today): J Wyatt, S Mason (both Reading), D Woods (Southgate), B Crutchley, A Humphrey, J Pidcock, B Sharpe (all Cannock), P McGuire (Teddington), R Garcia (HDM, Netherlands), C Giles (Laren, Netherlands), D Luckes (East Grinstead), G Fordham (Hounslow), Soma Singh, B Waugh (both Southgate), D Hall (Ilford), J Lee (Old Loughtonians).. Surprisingly, England have made just one change from the squad thrashed by Germany in Duisburg 10 days ago.