 | | Game in Washington | | DESPITE all the bluster about an impending default on the government's debt, most observers in Washington and on Wall Street still believe the two parties will reach a crisis-averting agreement.
That's because the practice of American politics assumes that all players will negotiate according to predictable patterns _ that they will realise they can get more from compromise than by demanding everything and winning nothing.
Under that assumption, President Obama is right to keep pressing for a compromise, because eventually the Republicans will fall in line. But as two wildly different fields _ game theory and the study of elephant mating patterns _ show, there are limits to the usual assumptions: Sometimes players simply refuse to play the game, and when that happens, the best advice for their opponents is to do the same.
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|  |  | | CAN'T THE US DO THIS RIGHT? | | THERE is only one thing worse than Republicans and Democrats failing to agree to lift the debt ceiling, and that is lifting the debt ceiling without a well-thought-out plan and with hasty cuts totalling trillions of dollars over a decade. What business do you know _ that is still in business _ that would operate this way: making massive longterm cuts, negotiated by exhausted executives, without any strategic plan? It certainly wouldn't be a business you'd expect to thrive.
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| | Del Potro struggles past Blake; Baghdatis ousted | | LOS ANGELES SECOND-SEEDED Juan Martin del Potro battled past James Blake 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) on Wednesday at the ATP Los Angeles hardcourt tournament as third-seeded Marcos Baghdatis was sent packing.
Argentina's Del Potro, on the comeback trail after a wrist injury cut short his 2010 season, booked a quarterfinal clash with Latvia's Ernests Gulbis.
Baghdatis, however, was bundled out by Taiwan's Lu Yen-Hsun, who defeated the Cypriot 6-3, 6-4 to set up a quarter-final clash with American Ryan Harrison.
Both del Potro and Baghdatis enjoyed firstround byes, as did topseeded Mardy Fish and fourth-seeded Thomaz Bellucci.
Fish will open his campaign on Thursday against Luxembourg's Gilles Muller while Bellucci faces Colombian Alejandro Falla in a second-round contest.
After pocketing the first set, del Potro gained the edge in the second when he broke Blake in the third game.
However, the American broke back in the next game and they stayed on serve to the tiebreaker.
Del Potro got off to a quick start in the decider, taking a 3-1 lead and giving himself a 6-2 lead with a forehand winner.
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| | Sharapova rallies to enter quarters | | STANFORD SECOND-SEEDED Maria Sharapova reached the quarter- finals of the $721,000 WTA hardcourt tournament on Wednesday, setting up a possible showdown with Serena Williams.
Sharapova, ranked number five in the world, defeated Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to advance as she tries to build on the momentum of a runner- up finish at Wimbledon.
She led a string of seeds into the quarter-finals as third-seeded Marion Bartoli, fifth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska and eighth-seeded Dominika Cibulkova all advanced.
Sharapova fought her way through despite 11 double faults, finally advancing after 2 hours and 12 minutes.
Sharapova admitted she "kind of lost it" in the second set. "I got away from what I was doing well and she had all the confidence and all the momentum going into the third set." Hantuchova built a 2-0 lead in the third set before Sharapova won four games to wrap it up.
She next faces either Williams or Russian Maria Kirilenko, who play on Thursday.
Williams, a 13-time Grand Slam champion, is unseeded after an injury layoff of nearly a year saw her ranking plummet.
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| | Laxman confident of India bouncing back | | NOTTINGHAM INDIA'S middle-order batsman VVS Laxman insists the world No.1 Test side will bounce back in the four-match Test series against England.
As India heads into the second Test starting on Friday at Trent Bridge, Laxman said India, who is known as slow starter, has always done well despite losing the first Test in the past series.
"We have the potential to bounce back and we have done that in the past," Laxman was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph. "We lost badly against South Africa in Centurion but came back strongly to draw the Test series for the first time on South African soil," he said.
India suffered a humiliating innings and 25 runs defeat in the first Test at the Centurion but came strongly back to win the second Test in Durban by 87 runs while the third and the final Test in Cape Town ended in a draw.
Laxman hoped that India would put up a good show at Trent Bridge, where it won the second Test match in 2007 to win the 2007 series.
The stylish Hyderabadi batsman does not want to think too much about England bowlers, who played a crucial role in the team's 196-run win over India in the Lord's Test.
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