golf

Stacey Keating secured back-to-back victories on the Ladies' European Tour yesterday by coming from three shots down to win the Lacoste Ladies Open de France in Aquitaine.

The Australian, whose victory last time out in Tenerife was her first on the Tour, began the final day trailing the leader, Italy's Diana Luna, by three but a six-under-par 64 was enough to recover for victory, one ahead of Luna.

American Hannah Jun and Azahara Munoz, of Spain, shared third place, while Mexican Lorena Ochoa, the former world No.1 who came out of retirement for this event as a favour to her sponsors, finished in a tie for 22nd.

athletics

Oban's Susan Partridge narrowly missed out on a team bronze medal at the World Half Marathon Championships in Kavarna, Bulgaria, writes Lorin McDougall.

The Leeds-based athlete helped Britain to a creditable fourth-place finish, but Partridge was "disappointed" to come 28th in the individual race in a time over two minutes outside her personal best.

"I expected it to go better, so I'm disappointed," she admitted after clocking 73min 55sec in hot and humid conditions. "I found it tough, but it was my best finish in a World Half Marathon Championship." Partridge will now turn her attention to next month's New York Marathon.

badminton

Scotland's Robert Blair and Malaysia's Bin Shen Tan, the No.5 seeds, won the men's doubles at yesterday's Babolat Bulgarian International in Sofia, writes Elspeth Burnside.

In a 27-minute final, they scored an upset 21-10, 2-17 victory over the German No.4 seeds, Andreas Heinz and Max Schwenger.

In the mixed doubles, Blair and fellow-Scot Jillie Cooper were the No.4 seeds and they reached the semi-finals before going out 21-17, 20-22, 10-21 to the German top seeds, Michael Fuchs and Birgit Michels. Fuchs and Michels went on to win the title by defeating compatriots Peter Kaesbauer and Isabel Hertrich 21-9, 12-13.

bowls

East Lothian's Willie Wood proved that he is still a force to be reckoned with in yesterday's Two Bowl Pairs play-downs, writes Anne Dunwoodie.

Along with clubmate Mark Johnston, they won the West Section and will tackle Blantyre when the title comes under the hammer at Falkirk early in the new year, while Stonehaven also booked their berth from the North Section and will face East winners Midlothian.

This is one of the few titles that the Garden County camp have never won and the East Lothian duo enjoyed a commanding 9-0, 9-5 quarter-final win over Coatbridge, while Blantyre, last year's beaten semi-finalist, got home 9-7, 7-1 against Prestwick's Craig Lindsay and Paul Boyd.

At Fraserburgh, Stonehaven's Daniel Colvin and Paul Hay won their three matches in straights sets getting over the quarter-final hurdle against Elgin duo Graeme Donaldson and Stuart Cruikshank 6-3, 9-4 with Midlothian's Scott Matthews and Ian Brown hitting back to beat Ross Nichol and Kenny Johnstone from Tweedbank 8-2, 5-6, 7-1.

curling

Scotland took gold in the European Mixed Championships in Erzurum, Turkey, beating Sweden by 8-4 in the final, writes Mike Haggerty.

Earlier the Scots – skip Ewan MacDonald, Eve Muirhead, Euan Byers and Karen Barthelemy – had beaten Austria 6-5 in a close semi-final, while Sweden defeated Finland 4-3. Finland went on to beat Austria 10-3 to take the bronze medals.

n Aberdeen's Tom Brewster fared best of the Scots at the Swiss Cup in Basle, but the world silver medallist was unable to progress to the quarter-finals, writes Lorin McDougall.

Brewster beat Dumfries skip Grant Hardie 8-6 and Stirling's Logan Gray 5-4 before losing 5-1 to Norway's Olympic runner-up Thomas Ulsrud to finish ninth overall. Hardie's challenge was eventually ended by Frenchman Thomas Dufour.

hockey

Scotland missed out on the bronze medal at the FIH Champions Challenge in Dublin yesterday when they went down 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out to hosts Ireland after the sides finished level 2-2 after extra time, writes Craig Madden.

Scotland's Nikki Kidd, Sam Judge and Vikki Bunce all scored and goalkeeper Amy Gibson had saved one of Ireland's efforts for a 3-2 lead, but then Ailsa Wyllie overran the allotted eight seconds, Kareena Marshall shot wide. Meanwhile, the Irish calmly scored their final two chances to take the bronze.

Earlier, Ali Bell and Judge had scored to offset strikes by Emma Smyth and Niamh Atcheler.

In the final, Australia defeated the United States 6-1.

squash

Scotland's Alan Clyne was beaten by iron man Omar Abdel Aziz in the final qualifying round for the US Open in Philadelphia, writes Lorin McDougall.

The Egyptian had taken 73 minutes to get past Canada's Shawn Delierre in the previous round, and he needed eight minutes more to overcome Clyne 11-4, 5-11, 11-8, 11-3.

rallying

Scottish Rally champion David Bogie piloted his new Ford Escort Mk2 to a maiden class win on the McRae Stages rally in Perthshire on Saturday, writes Kenneth Stephen.

However, overall victory went to Banchory's Quintin Milne in a Mitsubishi Evo9, his first ever win in the Scottish Rally Championship.

Four times champion Bogie ditched his title-winning Evo9 for the season's finale and tackled the forest event in an Irish two-wheel-drive car he's tested only once. The Dumfries driver guided the vehicle home in first place in the two-wheel-drive category and third place overall, but it was a glory day for Milne, who finished the rally 40 seconds ahead of second placed Barry Groundwater.

Shinty

Inveraray marked manager John Smilie's final game in charge on Saturday with their first ever Premiership win against Kingussie at the Dell, writes Kenneth Stephen.

Prior to Saturday, the Argyll outfit had never even taken a point in Badenoch since the inception of the top division. The 2-1 victory, therefore, was the perfect way to end Smilie's tenure and set the tone for the 2013 campaign, and a new manager.

Inveraray lost an epic Camanachd Cup final 6-5 to Kyles last month but the next manager, who will be appointed in December, will be looking to return to the big stage again and made amends.

table tennis

Falkirk's Christopher Wheeler's fine run at the Serbian Junior Open Championships in Vrnjacka Banja came to an end when he lost out to Russian Artur Abusev 5-11, 9-11, 4-11 in the round of 32.