Defending champion Tseng Ya-ni (
Tseng, who barely advanced with a 10-over 152 for 36 holes of stroke play, defeated American Sung Lee, 3 and 1.
Co-medalists Mari Chun and Angela Park easily won their first-round matches.
Chun, 17, defeated Patty Chawalitmetha 4 and 3. Park, 16, birdied four of the first five holes at Swope Memorial in a 7 and 6 victory over Felicia Johnston.
The field of 64 was trimmed to 32 on Wednesday, and it was to be cut to eight yesterday with two rounds scheduled. The 36-hole final is tomorrow.
Tseng, who defeated Michelle Wie 1-up in last year's final, had to calm herself after the qualifying rounds.
"I went back to my bedroom and cried for 15 minutes because I thought I might not make the cut. I was worried," Tseng said through a translator.
Her putter, which was erratic in stroke play, was much better against Lee.
"I slept with my putter last night because my putter didn't work in the first two days," Tseng said.
"Today it worked. I'll sleep with it again tonight. I missed only two putts, so I made most of them," she said.
Schoolgirl sensation
Meanwhile schoolgirl sensation Wie rallied to beat Will Claxton on the final hole on Wednesday in the first round of match play competition in the US men's Amateur Public Links Championship.
Wie, who had to sweat out making the cut after two rounds of stroke play, took matters into her own hands as she tried to keep her hopes of a possible Masters invitation alive.
With the pair all square through 17 holes, Wie holed a 15-footer for birdie on the 384m, par-four 18th to dispatch Claxton, a quarter-finalist in this event last year.
"It felt good after I made that putt. I felt really confident because I had made a lot of birdie putts before that [three previous in the match.] I am very glad I made it," Wie said.
Wie, the first woman to qualify for a men's US Golf Association amateur event, had completed her second stroke play round on Tuesday at two-over 72 for a 36-hole total of eight-over 148.
At that point, she was tied for 68th with only the top 64 advancing to six grueling rounds of match play.
By the time the round was over, however, she was tied for 49th.
The championship will be decided by a 36-hole match tomorrow, and the winner has received an invitation to the Masters every year since 1989.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but