MELBOURNE: Swedish world champion Jan Ove Waldner heads a strong entry for the Australian Open table tennis championships, beginning here on Thursday. Waldner leads a six-strong Swedish team, which also includes 1991 world champion Jorgen Persson and three-time European champion Mikael Appelgren. Frenchman Jean Phillip Gatien is another high-profile contender. The powerful Chinese team will include Olympic champions Kong Linghui and Liu Guoliang.

Thomas Helmer quits German squad

BONN: Thomas Helmer has become the latest member of Germany's old guard to announce he would no longer play for the national team. "The coach has his own ideas. I've got mine and as they don't meet, it doesn't make sense (to carry on)," said the 33-year-old Bayern Munich captain, who appeared 68 times for his country.

Singh follows Major with win

CASTLE ROCK (COLORADO): Fiji's Vijay Singh took over the PGA Tour money lead by following his first major championship witha victory here Sunday at the PGA International. Singh captured the $360,000 top prize at the two million-dollar event, boosting his winnings for the year to $1,694,253 and surpassing American David Duval for the United States PGA money lead. The past eight days produced $900,000 of Singh's 1998 total. The wire-to-wire triumph made the Fijian the first player in 1998 with back-to-back US Tour victories.