Winger Scott Hamilton scored three tries Friday as the Canterbury Crusaders thrashed the Wellington Hurricanes 47-7 to reach their seventh Super 12 rugby final in a decade.
Hamilton was the only non-All Black in the Crusaders backline but he became the star a brilliant attacking performance which ensured next week's season final will be staged in Christchurch.
Flyhalf Daniel Carter scored another of the Crusaders' six tries and kicked three penalties and four conversions for a personal contribution of 22 points.
Hamilton prospered on the right wing, while on the left wing Rico Gear scored his 15th try to equal the tournament record set by Australia's Joe Roff with the Brumbies in 1997.
The win polished the Crusaders' glistening playoffs record. In 10 years they have made the semifinals on eight occasions, moved on to the final seven times and won four championships.
Their experience, depth and almost instinctive combination was obvious Friday and was a mute warning to the winner of Saturday's second semifinal between the New South Wales Waratahs and South Africa's Bulls who will face them in the final.
The Hurricanes had almost 60 percent of possession in the first half but won only 33 per cent of territory and found themselves already two tries and 18-0 down at halftime.
Their discomfort turned to embarrassment in the second half as the Crusaders, and Hamilton particularly, turned every half chance into points.
The Hurricanes gave up the ball with almost 20 turnovers and more than a dozen handling errors and those regular lapses were fuel for the Crusaders.
There was no better example of the Crusaders' threat from turnover ball than Hamilton's second try, which ranged 90 meters and involved nine passes and brilliant interplay among backs and forwards.
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