Chinese basketball fans and officials were yesterday desperately hoping that a serious foot injury to star center Yao Ming (
The Houston Rockets center has a stress fracture in his left foot that will end his NBA season, his team said on Tuesday, and could even threaten his key role in the Beijing Olympics.
An official at the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) said yesterday that Yao will have surgery on his foot as soon as possible, although the national team already have plans to tackle the Olympics without him.
PHOTO: AP
"A preliminary decision has been made [for Yao] to undergo surgery after a comprehensive analysis by doctors, the team and Yao himself," the CBA said in a statement posted on media portal Sina.com.
CBA deputy head Hu Jia said China already had a contingency plan in place for a Yao-less Games campaign.
"Two years ago, we planned two sets of tactics, including one with Yao and one without him. Now we will focus more on tactics and training without Yao," Hu said.
The Rockets said the six-time NBA all-star was expected to be sidelined for three to four months, and only then would be begin full rehabilitation training.
That would leave Yao with only a month or two to regain match fitness for the Games from Aug. 8 to Aug. 24, a tight schedule for the man who China hopes will lead his team to a basketball medal.
China's Titan sports newspaper quoted Yao as saying he was crushed that his NBA season was over but that he believed he would be able to compete in Beijing.
"His only consolation was that the injury would not cause him to miss out on his dream of playing in the Olympics," it said.
However, Chinese state television quoted Yao as saying that after the injury he had concerns about his participation in the Olympics.
Failure to represent China in the Olympics would be the "biggest loss of my career," he was quoted as saying.
Chinese basketball fans filled blogs with anxious sentiments.
"This is like a lightning bolt," wrote a blogger on the popular Chinese-language portal sina.com. "We now all have to hope that he can be fully recovered before the Olympics."
Yao said in September China's Olympic medal hopes looked dim unless the team shaped up and improved on poor form last year.
Also See: NBA: Miami snap 11-game losing skid
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