Italy bounce back to defeat Great Britain in Davis Cup quarter-final

Andy Murray hits a return during his Davis Cup defeat to Fabio Fognini. Photograph: Matteo Ciambelli/Sipa/REX

Great Britain came tantalisingly close to reaching their first Davis Cupsemi-final in 33 years. Italy are in their first semi-final since 1998. Yet holding those bare bones of this gripping tie together were the interlocked threads of passion and national pride that make the competition special.

If it has lost some of its lustre over the decades, swamped by the glamour of the grand slams, all the evidence here over the past three days suggests that there is no shortage of commitment to the tournament conceived 115 years ago by students at Harvard University looking for an excuse to challenge the British at anything to do with a ball and which has spread its reach to 122 nations.

Andy Murray and James Ward each lost in straight sets to clay-courters of proven pedigree, Fabio Fognini and Andreas Seppi, respectively. Neither loser could complain, nor should any of the 700 travelling fans who went cheer-for-boo with the 4,300 Italians who shared the temporary court clinging to the Bay of Naples on a day of fleeting showers and warm sunshine.

As absurd as it is to contemplate, the team captain, Leon Smith, and his tight-knit unit might have to campaign in the future without the services of their best player since Fred Perry, who guided Great Britain to victory in 1936. It is a thought in passing but a telling one: while he has declined to share his thoughts on Scottish independence, if the vote in September is for a cleaving of the union then Dunblane's Surrey-domiciled hero would be forced to choose between the country of his birth and his friends in the south. Smith, a Scot, said the issue of split loyalties had been no more than, "banter in the locker room", but added it might have to be addressed at some point.

Such notions were a long way from his mind, of course, after he had left everything on court against Fognini, who levelled the tie at 2-2, preparing the way for Seppi's 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Ward in the deciding rubber.

"I always enjoy playing Davis Cup and my record would suggest that," Murray said. "I won 19 singles matches in a row until today. I'm disappointed not to keep that going. I'll think about next year's Davis Cup when we're finished in the competition this year."

He did not expect that moment to arrive so suddenly and was courtside in voluble support of Ward all the way to the end, but the Londoner was always a long-shot to beat Seppi, 127 places ahead of him in the rankings.

Earlier, Fognini had cruised over his favourite surface like a demented Samurai, all sweating bandana and flowing black locks, and tormented Murray for much of the two hours and 19 minutes their tense contest lasted. There could be no denying that the Italian – who has won three clay titles and reached the final of two others since Wimbledon – deserved his 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 win, only his third success against a top 10 opponent (after Tomas Berdych and Richard Gasquet).

Fognini struck his forehand fiercely and heavily outscored Murray, 103 points to 78, allowing the world No8 just one proper glimpse of getting back into the match after dropping serve in the opening game.

Much is made of Murray's susceptibility on clay but he spent his formative teenage years on it in Spain and, although Nikolay Davydenko is his only top 10 victim on the draining dirt, the Scot is not exactly an easy mark.

He did not play badly here, neither did he reach the heights of his blinding finish against Seppi on Friday, a performance which suggested he was returning to near his best after a low-key comeback from back surgery in September, then the split with his coach Ivan Lendl.

"One of the things you can normally bank on with him [Fognini] is that he will play a few loose games, lose concentration for a little bit, and he didn't do that today – so credit to him," Murray said. "There were parts of the match I would have liked to play better, specifically that middle part of the second set. I missed a return on one of the break points."

It was a typically boisterous tie from day one, reaching a crescendo on Sunday. It was a tough crowd: they even booed Murray when he showed Fognini the new ball, and he said he heard one fan persistently shouting out "loser", although it did not bother him.

"It was pretty much from the first service game, every time I was bouncing the ball. It's part of Davis Cup. You see some of the stuff footballers have to put up with from fans. You just have to deal with it. It's something we're not used to the rest of the year, because tennis is so polite, I guess. The atmosphere was absolutely fine. I've definitely played in worse than that. Their captain was speaking when I threw the ball up in the first set, so I just asked if he could stop doing that because it's happened in every single match so far."

There was an air of anarchy about proceedings. Fognini, a beguiling mix of passion and petulance, flung his water bottle away as his captain Corrado Barazzutti counselled him in the first set. While Murray was waiting to serve at the start of the eighth game of the third, Fognini was still in his chair, vomiting into his towel. The end came quickly. Murray saved two of three match points then netted a tired forehand from the baseline.

It would be harsh to describe Ward's match against Seppi as an afterthought but, once the Italian hit a rhythm, that is what it became. Seppi converted seven of 16 break chances, four of them in a wild first set, Ward took four of his six chances

Lewis Hamilton holds off Nico Rosberg as Mercedes dominate in Bahrain

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton (R) of Great Britain battle for the lead during the Bahrain Grand Prix. Photograph: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

In a spectacular Bahrain Grand Prix, and one that held up to high ridicule the recent criticisms of the Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, Lewis Hamiltontook the chequered flag to cut his team-mate Nico Rosberg's overall lead to 11 points.

It was an absolute thriller from lights to flag with more overtaking moves than you could shake your DRS at, a series of memorable tussles between team-mates, and even the introduction of the safety car after a breathtaking collision to add extra drama to the closing stages.

It was all played out under 5,000 blazing lights in the desert of this Gulf kingdom and the fireworks that exploded into the night sky were a worthy celebration of the best race for years. The crowd of 31,000 was also a record for this race, though that is not saying much for this historically poorly attended event.

Like all great races, it had a compelling climax. It came when the safety car, which had been introduced following Pastor Maldonado's crash with Esteban Gutiérrez – with the Lotus driver at fault – left the stage for the final Mercedes double act between Hamilton and Rosberg.

The safety car had wiped out Hamilton's advantage of nine and a half seconds over his team-mate. And now Rosberg, on the faster soft-compound rubber and also armed with DRS after a two-lap delay, was the clear favourite with Hamilton wearing the harder medium tyres.

Paddy Lowe, Mercedes' executive director, had his heart in his mouth but somehow got words to both his drivers: "With 10 laps left to race let's bring both cars home."

That did not prevent an electric final head-to-head, one which reprised the start of the race and the unforgettable duel over laps 18 and 19, when the lead changed a handful of times.

Rosberg again ran wheel to wheel with Hamilton and time and again appeared to have the advantage only for the British driver to hang on by the skin of his tyres; his 24th victory equals the record of the great Juan Manuel Fangio.

He said afterwards: "I haven't had a race like that since 2007. It was really exciting, Nico drove fantastically well, it was so fair but it was so hard to keep him behind me. I was on a real knife edge at the end but just managed to take it."

Rosberg, who rugby-charged his team-mate in a boisterous double celebration at the end, said: "I strongly dislike coming second to Lewis, I have to say that. But it was definitely the most exciting race I have ever raced in my career. I think today was a day for the sport, we put on a fantastic show as team Silver Arrows and I will be back to win here next season."

But what made this race truly extraordinary was the fact that the breathless fencing between Hamilton and Rosberg was replicated – albeit at a slightly less frenetic level – by other teams, most memorably by Williams, Force India and Red Bull. It was ultimately Sergio Pérez who took the third podium place, only Force India's second and their first since Spa in 2009. Remarkably, they are second in the constructors' championship.

Hamilton made a sensational start to the race, slipping through on the inside of Rosberg on turn one. Rosberg fought back immediately but Hamilton squeezed him off the track on turn four. Felipe Massa, seventh on the grid, also got off to a flyer and challenged for third place, along with Pérez, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hülkenberg, who had made up ground from an unpromising grid position.

And so the vivid opening brushstrokes were painted and the colours did not fade for the next two hours.

There was more disappointment for Ferrari, whose cars finished at the back of the top 10. And there was another painful defeat for Sebastian Vettel by his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. Vettel had to fend off the Williams pair to hold on to sixth place in the closing laps. How times have changed for the world champion.

They have also changed, wonderfully, for Formula One, all in the space of a single race.

CIA torture report: Nancy Pelosi blames Dick Cheney

The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, said former vice-president Dick Cheney was behind a post-9/11 change in attitude at the CIA. Photograph: Stelios Varias/Reuters

A senior Democrat has fuelled an acrimonious row over a Senate reportinto torture by the Central Intelligence Agency, by blaming the abuses on former vice-president Dick Cheney.

Nancy Pelosi on Sunday raised the stakes over the landmark study by shifting responsibility from the agency to Cheney, who steered much of the Bush administration's response to the September 11 2001 attacks.

The House minority leader said Cheney, a Republican, set the tone of CIA actions during an era of harsh interrogation methods, a controversy which has flared anew in the runup to congressional elections in November.

"I do believe that during the Bush-Cheney administration, that Vice-President Cheney set a tone and an attitude for the CIA," Pelosi told CNN's State of the Nation.

"Many people in the CIA are so patriotic, they protect our country in a way to avoid conflict and violence. But the attitude that was there was very – I think it came from Dick Cheney. That's what I believe. I think he's proud of it.”

The attack on one of the most polarising figures in US politics drew an immediate rebuke from the House intelligence committee chairman, Mike Rogers, who accused Pelosi of dunking an already fraught issue into the mid-term election campaign.

Also appearing on CNN, Rogers said: “What worries me most about that more than any other statement is that it politicises this in a way that I think is horribly counterproductive and is likely to leap to the wrong conclusion.”

The Senate intelligence committee voted last Thursday to declassify portions of a study into CIA use of torture on terrorist suspects following years of inquiry, $40m (£24m) in expenses and an unprecedented clash with Langley. The landmark 11-3 vote put the Obama administration back at the centre of an inherited controversy and had implications for the military tribunals of the 9/11 defendants at Guantánamo Bay, several of whom were subjected to such abuse.

The Senate intelligence committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein of California, a public champion of the investigation, called its findings "shocking" and said the CIA's behaviour was "in stark contrast to our values as a nation".

Rogers, a national security hawk, said he was concerned not just by Pelosi's jab at a GOP grandee but by the methodology and timing of the Senate report.

“This is not the holy grail,” he said, “it doesn't answer all the questions, and again, why now, why in an election year bring this up and say this is all about Dick Cheney. Clearly when you say things like that it becomes highly charged politically.”

The Bush administration moved away from enhanced interrogation in 2006, said Rogers, and the CIA now needed to focus on today's security priorities, not least Russian intelligence services who were “cutting people's ears off and holding knives to throats of 85-year-old men”.

“The agency now has all sorts of challenges all over the world,” he added, “from al-Qaida to Russia. There are more KGB agents – I'm sorry, Russian intelligence agents in America – that's the old word, than we had at the height of the cold war. There are more Chinese intelligence gatherers.”

Asked about Pelosi's comments, Dutch Ruppersberger, the House intelligence committee's top Democrat, declined to weigh in.

“When Cheney was there,” he said, “and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, they did some things that I might not agree with. In order to criticise I've got to wait for the facts.”

The Senate committee voted to release the executive summary, findings, conclusions and dissenting views of a 6,200-page report that accuses the CIA of conducting an abusive regimen of interrogations, extralegal detentions and so-called "renditions" of suspected terrorists to partner countries, and then misleading the Bush administration and Congress about its effectiveness in providing good intelligence.

The agency, amid a public fight with the authors of the report that has featured accusations of criminal misconduct and even constitutional usurpation, has branded the report misleading and factually inaccurate.

With a tough battle to keep control of the Senate looming in November, Democrats may hope recent reminders of the Bush era will help rally their base.

Errol Morris's documentary about Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, has returned the controversial former secretary of defence, a hate figure for the left, to the limelight. Bush has also garnered headlines, with the opening at his presidential library this week of an exhibition of hisportraits of world leaders.

California spring break brawl met with teargas and pepper spray

This video image provided by KEYT-TV shows a crowd confronting police at a disturbance on Saturday during a college party in southern California. Photograph: AP

About 100 people were arrested and at least 44 people were taken to the hospital during a weekend college party in southern California that turned into an out-of-control street brawl, authorities said.

Authorities reported using teargas, pepper spray and foam projectiles to disperse a surging crowd.

The violence broke out in the densely populated beachside community of Isla Vista around 9.30pm on Saturday, during the annual spring break party known as Deltopia, the Santa Barbara county sheriff's office said.

The sheriff's spokeswoman, Kelly Hoover, said things escalated after a University of California, Santa Barbara, police officer was hit in the face with a backpack filled with large bottles of alcohol.

Authorities said some members of the crowd of 15,000 then began throwing rocks, bricks and bottles at officers, lighting fires and damaging law enforcement vehicles.

"It was an emergency situation where we had to call in mutual aid," Hoover said. "They have had civil disturbances before in Isla Vista, but it has been many years since something like this."

At least five more officers were injured in the melee, including one officer who was hit in the face with a brick and two others who were both hit in the hand with bottles, sheriff's deputies said. All had been released from the hospital by Sunday morning, Hoover said.

Earlier in the day, authorities also responded to reports of a stabbing and found several individuals carrying weapons, she said. Aside from those who were treated after the brawl broke out, nearly every person who was hospitalised on Saturday had consumed excess alcohol, Hoover added.

"It really was ridiculous," Hoover said. "Deltopia attracts out-of-towners who come in and are not invested in our community and there are some who come to cause trouble."

The situation had stabilised by Sunday morning after sheriffs received backup support from multiple agencies in neighbouring Ventura County.

Isla Vista borders the university and is known for partying. The half-mile area has roughly 23,000 residents, of whom 60% are students.

Hoover said authorities remained in the area on Sunday morning cleaning up broken glass and trash strewn throughout the neighbourhood.

Fort Hood shootings: 'escalating argument' preceded attack

Lt Gen Mark Milley address news media at Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas. Photograph: Ashley Landis/EPA

The senior officer at Fort Hood said Friday an “escalating argument” with fellow soldiers preceded a shooting rampage in which a soldier fatally shot three people and wounded 16 others before killing himself this week.

Lt Gen Mark Milley said investigators believe Spc Ivan Lopez’s mental condition was not a "direct precipitating factor" in the shooting, a day after officials said it appeared to be an underlying factor in the attack.

Also Friday, Lopez's father said his son had struggled with the recent deaths of his mother and grandfather and the stress of being transferred to a new base.

Lopez's father, who shares the same name, said his son was receiving medical treatment but was a peaceful family man and a hard worker.

"This is very painful for me," the elder Lopez said in the statement from his native Puerto Rico, calling for prayers for the dead and the 16 people who were wounded in the shooting rampage. "My son could not have been in his right mind. He was not like that."

As investigators continued to examine how and why the soldier brought a gun on to the Texas base and began a shooting spree that injured 16 others, details emerged of the victims.

On Friday, the army identified them as: 39-year-old Daniel Ferguson, of Mulberry, Florida; 38-year-old Carlos Lazaney Rodriguez, of Puerto Rico; and 37-year-old Timothy Owens, of Effingham, Illinois.

Sergeant 1st Class Daniel Ferguson was from a small Florida town near Tampa. He had just returned from Afghanistan, WTSP News reported. Ferguson's fiancee, Kristen Haley, is also a soldier stationed at Fort Hood and was nearby when the incident started. She said that he used his body to keep a door closed so that Ivan Lopez could not enter.

"If he was not being the one against that door holding it, that shooter would have been able to get through and shoot everyone else," she told the station.

Sergeant Timothy Owens, 37, was originally from Illinois and later lived in Missouri. The father of two teenage children, he had recently remarried and was working as a counsellor. His mother, Mary Muntean, told the Associated Press that he dropped out of high school in 1995 and joined the army in 2004.

She said she was still celebrating a recent reunion with a daughter she gave up for adoption at birth when she saw the news on television and was unable to reach her son. She took phone calls from his wife, telling her first that he had been shot and was in hospital and then that he had died from a chest wound.

"She said, 'Mom, I want to tell you how sorry I am. Tim's gone.' I broke down. I'm 77 years old and I can't hardly take this," Muntean said.

Sergeant Carlos Lazaney Rodriguez was planning to retire from the military soon, according to CNN. The 38-year-old reportedly had family in Puerto Rico and Florida and had served in the armed forces for 20 years. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Rodriguez spent time as a supply sergeant at a barracks in Hawaii before leaving for Fort Hood in 2011.

"He was the epitome of what you would want a leader to be in the army," Joshua Adams, who served in the same company as Rodriguez, told the newspaper. "He has always taken care of soldiers. He survived all these deployments, just to come back … It's super unfortunate."

Investigators have said Lopez was undergoing treatment for mental problems including depression, anxiety and insomnia and was being assessed to determine whether he had post-traumatic stress disorder. They said he was taking medication and had undergone a full psychiatric evaluation last month which did not indicate any likelihood of violent behaviour.

Lopez, a married 34-year-old from Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, lived in an apartment near the base with his family. US army records show he entered active service in June 2008, and spent time in Egypt and Iraq. He received several awards and decorations and arrived at Fort Hood last February from another Texas base, Fort Bliss.

His mother reportedly died suddenly last November. A family spokesman said Thursday that Lopez was upset that he was granted only a 24-hour leave to attend his mother's funeral in November. That leave was then extended to two days.

The Lopez family said in their statement on Friday that "recent changes when transferring to the base surely affected his existing condition because of his experiences as a soldier." Ivan Lopez said his son "must not have been in his right mind" and asked for prayers "for the affected families".

Lopez died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after he was confronted in a parking lot on the base by a military police officer.

Security protocols were reviewed after the base was the scene of another mass shooting in 2009 that killed 13 people and wounded more than 30. However, Milley said that Fort Hood is so large that it is not feasible to conduct detailed searches of everyone who enters.

Lopez bought the semi-automatic handgun used in the attack a month earlier from a local store called Guns Galore. Nidal Hasan, the shooter in the 2009 rampage, also bought his FN 5.7 tactical pistol at Guns Galore.

Soldiers are not allowed to bring unregistered personal weapons on to the installation.

The nearby Scott & White Memorial Hospital said on Friday that it is continuing to treat four of the victims and that the most-seriously injured patients are showing signs of improvement. "One patient is in good condition and will most likely be discharged today. The three patients previously listed in critical condition have been upgraded to fair condition and are expected to remain in the hospital for the next several days. Five patients have been discharged from the hospital," it said in a statement.

Drone killings case thrown out in US

Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen, was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. Photograph: AP

A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the government by the families of three American citizens killed by drones in Yemen, saying senior officials cannot be held personally responsible for money damages for the act of conducting war.

The families of the three – including Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born militant Muslim cleric who had joined al-Qaida's Yemen affiliate, as well as his teenage son – sued over their 2011 deaths in US drone strikes, arguing that the killings were illegal.

Judge Rosemary Collyer of the US district court in Washington threw out the case, which had named as defendants the former defence secretary and CIA chief Leon Panetta, the former senior military commander and CIA chief David Petraeus and two other top military commanders.

"The question presented is whether federal officials can be held personally liable for their roles in drone strikes abroad that target and kill U.S. citizens," Collyer said in her opinion. "The question raises fundamental issues regarding constitutional principles and it is not easy to answer."

But the judge said she would grant the government's motion to dismiss the case.

Collyer said the officials named as defendants "must be trusted and expected to act in accordance with the US constitution when they intentionally target a US citizen abroad at the direction of the president and with the concurrence of Congress. They cannot be held personally responsible in monetary damages for conducting war."

Awlaki's US-born son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was 16 years old when he was killed. Also killed was Samir Khan, a naturalised US citizen who had moved to Yemen in 2009 and worked on Inspire, an English-language al-Qaida magazine.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Centre for Constitutional Rights, both based in New York, represented the families. They had argued that in killing American citizens the government violated fundamental rights under the US constitution to due process and to be free from unreasonable seizure.

"This is a deeply troubling decision that treats the government's allegations as proof while refusing to allow those allegations to be tested in court," said ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi. "The court's view that it cannot provide a remedy for extrajudicial killings when the government claims to be at war, even far from any battlefield, is profoundly at odds with the Constitution."

Centre for Constitutional Rights lawyer Maria LaHood said the judge "effectively convicted" Anwar al-Awlaki "posthumously based solely on the government's say-so". LaHood said the judge also found that the constitutional rights of the son and of Khan "weren't violated because the government didn't target them".

"It seems there's no remedy if the government intended to kill you, and no remedy if it didn't. This decision is a true travesty of justice for our constitutional democracy and for all victims of the US government's unlawful killings," LaHood said.

Collyer ruled that the families did not have a claim under the Constitution's fourth amendment guarantee against unreasonable seizures because the government did not seize or restrain the three who were killed. "Unmanned drones are functionally incapable of 'seizing' a person; they are designed to kill, not capture," she wrote.

Collyer wrote that the families had presented a plausible claim that the government violated Awlaki's due process rights. "Nonetheless the court finds no available remedy under US law for this claim," the judge wrote.

"In this delicate area of war making national security and foreign relations the judiciary has an exceedingly limited role."

Allowing claims against individual federal officials in this case "would impermissibly draw the court into the heart of executive and military planning and deliberation", she wrote. It would "require the court to examine national security policy and the military chain of command as well as operational combat decisions".

Nasser al-Awlaki, father of Anwar al-Awlaki, said he was disappointed in the American justice system and "like any parent or grandparent would, I want answers from the government when it decides to take life, but all I have got so far is secrecy and a refusal even to explain".

Drone attacks have killed several suspected figures in al-Qaida's Yemen-based affiliate including Awlaki, who is accused of orchestrating plots to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and US cargo planes in 2010.

The United States has faced international criticism for its use of drones to attack militants in places such as Pakistan and Yemen. A UN human rights watchdog in March called on the Obama administration to limit its use of drones targeting suspected al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

Barack Obama's administration increased the number of drone strikes after he took office in 2009 but attacks have dropped off in the past year. The US has come under pressure from critics to rein in the missile strikes and do more to protect civilians.

Cuba beats US 5-0 in first boxing bout on Cuban soil in 27 years

Although political tensions between the US and Cuba remain, cultural and athletic exchanges have become increasingly common. Photo: Ramon Espinosa /AP

On Friday night, boxers from the US and Cuba went glove-to-glove on Cuban soil for the first time in 27 years, in a semiprofessional World Series of Boxing meeting that in many ways resembled a big-time Las Vegas bout.

Cuba won the bouts 5-0, with one knockout and four technical decisions. Friday's matches were the first of a home-and-away series between the Knockouts, from the US, and the Wranglers of Cuba. The winner of the series goes on to face Ukraine or Russia – two other countries which have been subject to political tensions recently – on 25 April and 2 May for a ticket to the finals.

The US leg was originally set for 28 March in South Florida, the cradle of the Cuban exile community, but it was postponed days before the bouts were to take place. It was rescheduled for 12 April in Salem, New Hampshire, the Cuban Federation of Boxing says.

Although political tensions between the US and Cuba remain – this week seeing controversy over a “Cuban Twitter” company, ZunZuneo, that was run by the US government, reportedly in an attempt to foment political opposition to the island's communist government – cultural and athletic exchanges have become increasingly common.

Sixteen years after a regular baseball series between Cuba and the USA was called off, a team of American collegian all-stars visited the island in 2012. The Cubans reciprocated the following year. In boxing, Cuba and the USA met each year from 1977 to 1995, though the last time they did so on the island was in 1987. Cuba won every time except in 1991, when a squad featuring a teenage Oscar de la Hoya managed a 6-6 tie in Fort Bragg, California.

On Friday night, after a reggaeton duo got the crowd revved up, boxers entered Havana's Sport City arena through the haze of smoke machines and flashing lights. In between the action, models circled the ring holding up round cards as huge flat-screen displays showed replays of crunching jabs and uppercuts.

"I am prepared for a tough match and I want a tough match," Mohamed Salah, a welterweight who fights for the USA Knockouts, said at the weigh-in before the bout. "That's why I am here, and I am excited to be here … I'm a real boxer."

Cuba's entry into the 12-team international semipro league last year marked a major departure from more than 50 years during which professional sports were banned on the island. As recently as 2005, Fidel Castro railed against the "parasites that feed off the athlete's hard work" when money is involved with sports.

But since younger brother Raúl Castro took over the presidency, Cuba has not only joined the World Series of Boxing but announced that athletes from other sports will be allowed to sign contracts to compete overseas – as long as they fulfill their duties to national teams.

"We know it is a traditional clash that always recalls connotations that can be bigger than sports," two-time world lightweight champ Cuban Lazaro Alvarez told the online magazine OnCuba recently. "Against the United States one always enjoys a win more and suffers a defeat more. But in my experience, until now, we have always beaten them."

Several hundred spectators turned out to cheer on the home team even though Havana's baseball club was playing the same night for a chance in the playoff finals.

Despite being based in the United States, the Knockouts boxing squad that came to Cuba had a distinctly international flavour. Two of the five pugilists are originally from Venezuela, and there was one each from Brazil and Sweden. Cuba, an island of some 11 million inhabitants, has a rich boxing tradition.

World Series of Boxing fighters compete for sponsored teams and do not wear headgear during bouts, unlike amateur competition. They earn about $1,000 to $3,000 a month – which would be a big raise for the Cubans, though how much the Wranglers make has not explicitly been made public.

"It's exciting for everyone to have a direct clash with the United States, known for its sporting strength and traditional quality in boxing," said Rolando Acebal, the Cuban coach. "Everyone wants to have their best performance and put on a good show."