Top-seeded Venus Williams cruised into the second round of the Korea Open yesterday, defeating American qualifier Abigail Spears 6-2, 6-3.
Despite warm conditions at Seoul's Olympic Park tennis arena, the Wimbledon champion barely broke a sweat as she used her powerful serve to dominate the match. Spears, whose right arm was heavily strapped, failed to win a single point from Williams's first serve in the opening set.
In the second set, Williams broke again in the opening game and held off a late rally from Spears to complete a comfortable win.
PHOTO: AFP
In other first-round matches, defending champion No. 5 Eleni Daniilidou of Greece won a hard-fought match against Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-4, 6-4; Martina Muller of Germany beat local hope Han Sung-hee 6-1, 6-0; Ahsha Rolle of the US made short work of Anne Keothavong of Britain 6-1, 6-1 and Mathilde Johansson of France defeated Junri Namigata of Japan 7-5, 6-2.
Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn rallied from a set down to eliminate Australia's Casey Dellacqua 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, China's Yuan Meng defeated New Zealand's Marina Erakovic 6-4, 6-4 and Colombian Catalina Castano beat Hseih Su-wei of Taiwan, 6-3, 6-2. Another local favorite was eliminated as Agnes Szavay of Hungary defeated South Korea's Lee Ye-ra 6-2, 6-3.
Williams, who won her sixth Grand Slam at Wimbledon this year, returned to the top 10 in the WTA world rankings the first time since April last year after reaching the US Open semi-finals.
Seventh-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel beat Czech Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-3 on Monday, the opening day of the Fortis Championships.
In the other two matches, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 4-6, 7-5, 6-1, and Anne Kremer of Luxembourg downed Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands 6-3, 7-6 (3).
The 18-year-old Azarenka next will face third-seeded Nadia Petrova of Russia, who received a bye to the second round while Kremer will face second-seeded Ana Ivanovic of Serbia.
Defending champion Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine was to play her first match yesterday, as was top-seeded Anna Chakvetadze of Russia.
German wild-card Nicolas Kiefer saw off third-seeded Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4 6-3 in the first round of the Mumbai Open yesterday.
Up a break at 4-3 on Monday, before rain forced a premature end to play for the day on the outdoor hardcourts, the former world No. 4 wrapped up the match in another 48 minutes.
"It was not easy, started yesterday, rained, and continued today," Kiefer told a news conference. "He is a tough opponent.
"It's very humid here and takes time for one to adjust."
Ranked 130, Kiefer, who missed the second half of last season due to two wrist operations, broke the 24th-ranked Frenchman in the seventh and ninth games of the second set.
Fifth seed Fabrice Santoro beat fellow Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-1 6-2 in another first round match that was interrupted by rain.
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
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier