22 - 28 February 2001
Issue No.522
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 February 2001 Issue No.522 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Two million extra ticket forms
JAPANESE organisers of the 2002 World Cup will print an ex-ra two million domestic postal ticket application forms after be-ng overwhelmed by demand.
Ticket sales made an inauspicious kick-off last week when In-ernet applications in host nations Japan and South Korea were delayed and fans complained about their slim chance of seeing a live game. Applications for around three million of the tickets opened internationally with world soccer body FIFA aiming to sell many of them over the Internet for the first time.
But shortly before the planned start, FIFA said Web glitches meant that fans in Korea and Japan would be left to rely on paper application forms -- available at post offices and local government offices -- for at least two or three days.
Japanese organisers decided to distribute the additional two million forms to 25,000 post offices and official World Cup shops nationwide to satisfy the demands of soccer fans who had been unable to apply for tickets over the Internet.
Tickets will be available to the public on 5 March.
Hingis in Dubai
MARTINA Hingis, drawn by her love of horses and the prospect of meeting with some of Dubai's world-famous Arabian stallions, will head the field when the inaugural Dubai Tennis Championships event gets under way this week.
The arrival of the Swiss world number one in Dubai is especially satisfying for the organisers, Dubai Duty Free, who for several years refused to accept an inferior event, insisting that they were only interested in staging a tournament with a world-class field. As well as Hingis, the $565,000 Dubai Tennis Championships has attracted French Open champion Mary Pierce, Spanish veteran Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and former Wimbledon finalist Nathalie Tauziat.
Hingis is halfway through a punishing schedule, which might be a deciding factor in whether she becomes the first woman champion in Dubai.
Compiled from wire services
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