Three Taiwanese players take to the courts in the singles competitions at the final Grand Slam tournament of the year, the US Open, which starts today in New York.
Fresh from his defeat of British world No. 6 Andy Murray at the Beijing Olympics, Lu Yen-hsun faces Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador first up in the men’s tournament.
Lapentti is ranked at a respectable 66th in the world, only seven places ahead of Lu, so a close contest is on the cards.
The 32-year-old Ecuadorean has the edge in terms of experience, having played at Flushing Meadows 10 times. Lu by contrast has only one appearance under his belt, a first round exit in 2004, but Lapentti has never done particularly well in New York, his best performance an appearance in the third round in 2001.
In the women’s singles Chan Yung-jan and Hsieh Su-wei are flying the flag for Taiwan and both face Russian opponents in the first round.
Hsieh takes on 19-year old Evgeniya Rodina having earned the clash after sailing through last week’s qualification tournament without dropping a set. She beat Silvia Soler Espinosa of Spain 6-0, 6-4 in the first round and Madison Brengle of the US 6-4, 6-3 in the second round. The Kaohsiung-born 22-year-old booked her place in the main draw by downing Kristina Barrois of Germany 6-4, 6-1 in her final qualifying match.
Hsieh will be hoping to emulate her run at the Australian Open earlier this year where, after negotiating qualifying, she went on to reach the fourth round before becoming the last woman to lose to Justine Henin in a Grand Slam before the Belgian’s unexpected retirement.
Nevertheless, Hsieh’s performance saw her become the first woman from Taiwan to progress so far in the singles at a Grand Slam.
Hsieh may be able to give her compatriot a few tips on her opponent, Alla Kudryavtseva, who is her doubles partner. Either way Chan has cause to be reasonably confident of progressing into round two against a player 19 places below her in the world rankings. Chan’s ranking of 70 allowed her to automatically qualify for the main draw, unlike Hsieh, and she has three previous appearances in New York under her belt to her opponent’s one, despite the Russian being a year older.
Still, she can expect Kudryavtseva to put up a fight, as befits the daughter of a world champion Greco-Roman wrestler, and any complacency would be misplaced against an opponent who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon this year, accounting for Maria Sharapova on the way.
Chan will have fond memories of Flushing Meadows after reaching the final of the women’s doubles last year with Chuang Chia-jung and will be hoping they can go one step further this year by claiming Taiwan’s first ever Grand Slam title.
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