Nicole Vaidisova completed a poor preparation for Wimbledon with a first-round 6-2, 6-4 loss to Olga Govortsova of Belarus in the Eastbourne International Women’s Open on Tuesday.
Vaidisova has lost her opening match in six of her eight tournaments since going down to Serena Williams in the fourth round at the Australian Open, a run that includes a first-round loss at the French Open and a quarter-final exit at Birmingham last week.
The 19-year-old Czech player reached the quarter-finals at Eastbourne and Wimbledon last year after making the semi-finals at the Australian Open and quarter-finals at the French but has slumped from No. 7 to No. 18 in the rankings and changed coaches.
PHOTO: AFP
“It was disappointing,” Vaidisova said. “I had a pretty good week last week so I was expecting a little more than I did today. It wasn’t my day.”
“Everything I tried to do fell flat. My serve wasn’t working, which is a big part of my game, and she used her opportunities well,” she said.
“I switched my team and it’s a matter of getting used to them and working hard again. It doesn’t take two days to get used to a change so I have to be patient,” Vaidisova said.
Former top-ranked Lindsay Davenport, the 1999 Wimbledon champion and 2001 Eastbourne winner, withdrew from the singles draw with a knee problem before her first-round match. She expected to be OK for Wimbledon.
“I’m so bummed that I can’t play here, I’ve been working the hardest since I was pregnant. I’m so disappointed,” she said.
Davenport, who returned to tennis last autumn after nine months away to give birth, has won four titles since her comeback.
Eighth-seeded Nadia Petrova overcame 13 double faults to be first into the quarter-finals when she beat Li Na of China 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3.
In other results, Russia’s Alisa Kleybanova beat Britain’s Melanie South 6-4, 6-4 and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark set up a second-round meeting with top-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova.
Sybille Bammer of Austria edged Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia 7-6 (9), 1-6, 7-5 to set up a clash with second-seeded Marion Bartoli.
France’s Virginie Razzano beat Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi 6-3, 6-4 and Ekaterina Makarova crushed Vera Dushevina 6-3, 6-0 in an all-Russian opener.
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