Sunday, November 29, 2009 LONDON: Russia's Nikolay Davydenko won the ATP World Tour Finals title with a straight sets victory over Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro at London's O2 Arena. Last year's beaten finalist Davydenko won 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and 24 minutes to claim the season-ending title, disputed among the world's top eight players. The win meant Davydenko jumped up the rankings to finish the season as the world number six, while Del Potro remains at number five. The Russian scooped 1,510,000 dollars in prize money, while the Argentinian collected 740,000 dollars. Davydenko became the first Russian to win the season-ending tournament. "Coming here as number seven and winning the tournament, I surprised myself," said Davydenko, who downed the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open champions en route to claiming the title. Del Potro told him: "Congratulations, you had a great, great week, you beat everybody, you are a great, great champion."
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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