Grand champion Asashoryu tossed aside Kakizoe yesterday to maintain sole possession of the lead at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament.
After a crushing blow at the faceoff of the day's final bout, Asshoryu forced Kakizoe to the edge and lifted him a meter off the ground before depositing the No. 4 maegashira in the first row of seats at Ryogoku Kokugikan.
Asashoryu, who won five of six tournaments last year, improved to a perfect 6-0 while Kakizoe dropped to 1-5.
Asashoryu holds a one-win lead over three others including Mongolian compatriots Hakuho and Kyokutenho.
Rising star Hakuho barely broke a sweat when he used an arm throw to send hapless komusubi Kotomitsuki sprawling to the dirt surface.
Komusubi Hakuho, who has now won five in a row after losing to Asashoryu on the opening day, stands one win off the pace at 5-1 while Kotomitsuki slumped to 2-3.
Mongolian Kyokutenho, a sixth-ranked maegashira, stayed in the thick of things when he forced Tochinonada to the edge and bulldozed the top maegashira out to improve to 5-1. Tochinonada fell to 2-4.
Sekiwake Tochiazuma fought off a series of arm thrusts and stayed one win off the pace at 5-1 when he shoved out ozeki Chiyotaikai.
Ozeki Kaio dodged a bullet when he was forced back to the edge by winless No. 3 maegashira Tamanoshima but used solid footwork on the raised ring to even his record at 3-3.
Kaio came into the tournament looking for promotion to grand champion but has virtually no chance of moving up a rank after getting off to a slow start.
Georgian-born Kokkai improved to 2-4 and made sure Wakanosato can pretty much forget about promotion to ozeki.
Kokkai, a No. 3 maegashira, twisted Wakanosato down at the edge to hand the sekiwake grappler his fourth straight loss.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with