Taiwan's Chan Yung-jan and Chuang Chia-jung made an impressive start in their bid to win the women's doubles title at the Australian Open yesterday, earning a comfortable straight-sets victory over Alicja Rosolska and Maria Emilia Salerni.
Last year's finalists made short work of the Polish/Argentine duo, taking the first set 6-3 before further asserting their dominance by winning the second 6-1.
Meanwhile, Hsieh Su-wei claimed another Melbourne victory, this time with the help of Russia's Alla Kudryavtseva. After reaching the third round of women's singles on Wednesday, Hsieh teamed up with the Russian in the doubles yesterday to win a see-saw match against Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands and Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in three sets.
Hsieh and Kudryavtseva won the first set 6-4 before their opponents leveled the match, winning the second set by the same score. Hsieh and Kudryavtseva then took the deciding set 6-4.
The 22-year-old Taiwanese player moves into unchartered territory today when she plays Aravane Rezai of France in round three of the singles. It is the first time Hsieh has progressed so far in a Grand Slam tournament, and the prize of a probable match against world No. 1 Justine Henin awaits the winner.
First Hsieh has to get past Rezai, no easy task as the 19-year-old from St Etienne is ranked 89 spots above her. Rezai reached the fourth round of the US Open in 2006 and is in good form, having reached the final of the WTA tournament in Auckland earlier this month and disposed of No. 13 seed Tatiana Golovin in the previous round.
Past form offers no clues as to the result of today's clash, as Hsieh and Rezai have yet to meet in a WTA tournament.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later