London - Scotland and Wales have abandoned plans for a joint bid to host the 2016 European Championships.

The Football Association of Wales said late Sunday that the economic downturn and increased costs arising from UEFA's decision to expand the tournament to 24 teams made the bid unaffordable.

"After careful consideration, the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and the Scottish Football Association (SFA) have decided not to make a joint bid to host the Euro

Hamburg - American Serena Williams remains top of an unchanged women's tennis rankings issued Monday by the WTA ruling body.

Williams leads the rankings with 9,982 points followed by Russia's Dinara Safina on 9,021.

Sister Venus Williams, who won the WTA tournament in Acapulo on the weekend, beating Italy's Flavia Pennetta 6-1, 6-2 in the final, remains fifth.

WTA top 10 as of March 2 (previous ranking in parenthesis):

Hamburg - Spain's Rafael Nadal continues to head a virtually unchanged ATP men's tennis rankings Top 10 issued by the ruling body on Monday, followed by Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

The only change saw Frenchman Gael Monfils rise to his best-ever ranking of 9th, swapping places with Spain's Fernando Verdasco.

At the top, Nadal has 14,360 points, while Federer stands on 11,000.

ATP top 10 as of March 2 (previous ranking in parenthesis):

Los Angeles  - The "Big Shaqtus" is back, sticking it to his opponents again.

Shaquille O'Neal scored 33 points against his former team, and the Phoenix Suns withstood a 49-point effort by Kobe Bryant to burn the weary Los Angeles Lakers 118-111 on Sunday.

O'Neal followed up his season-high 45-point performance Friday against Toronto by hitting 13-of-18 field goals en route to his first back-to-back 30-point games since March 2004

"A lot of people are saying Shaq is back, but I never went anywhere, said O'Neal, who turns 37 on Friday. "The only time I'm not playing well is when I'm injured. When I'm fresh I can put up numbers.

London, Mar. 2 : Manchester United goalkeeper Ben Foster has given credit to his I-pod for the team's victory against Tottenham Hotspurs in the Carling Cup final on Sunday.

The Sun quoted the England stopper as saying: "Just before the shootout I was looking at an I-pod with goalkeeping coach Eric Steele. On it were images of Spurs taking penalties. I'd been told if O'Hara took a kick that he would probably go to my left. It was great that was exactly what happened and I managed to get a hand to it."

The Bengal selectors have named Laxmi Ratan Shukla as the skipper of the Bengal team for the Vijay Hazare Trophy knock-out phase.

However, on the other hand, the East Zone selectors had selected Manoj Tiwary as the skipper for the East Zone team for the next month's Deodhar Trophy.

With this, it becomes clear that there is a divide among the Bengal and zonal selectors over the selection of skipper.