Serena Williams made a stuttering start to her bid to topple Dinara Safina from the world No. 1 spot with an error-strewn 7-5, 6-4 win over Estonian Kaia Kanepi in the first round of the China Open yesterday.
Safina, who must at least match Williams’ progress over the next week in Beijing to retain the No. 1 ranking, was equally unconvincing in her 6-4, 6-4 victory over Italian Roberta Vinci earlier in the day.
Williams missed last week’s Pan Pacific Open with knee and toe injuries and looked far from her best in her first singles match since her rant at a line judge at the US Open last month.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“I’m definitely not at 100 percent, but I’m just fighting and trying to do the best I can,” Williams told reporters. “It wasn’t easy, but I felt like I was hitting a clean ball. She’s a really good player, she always plays tough.”
The Australian Open and Wimbledon champion made nine unforced errors in the 83-minute encounter against the big-hitting Kanepi, who broke the second seed three times.
Williams, though, always looked to have the edge on the big points and reached the second round of the US$6.6 million event with a fifth break of serve when Kanepi went long, keeping alive the American’s hopes of reclaiming the top ranking.
Top seed Safina’s victory over 59th-ranked Vinci was certainly an improvement on her first-round loss to Taiwanese qualifier Chang Kai-chen at the Pan Pacific Open last week, but was by no means commanding.
Broken early in both sets, Safina immediately evened up matters with breaks of her own, but was then forced to scrap it out with the dogged Italian to claim victory.
“I’m satisfied with the match, but there is still room to improve my game,” the 23-year-old Russian said.
Fifth seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark suffered a first-round upset, crashing out 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/2), 6-0 to Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
Fourth seed Elena Dementieva, returning to the scene of her Olympic triumph last year, had no such problems with her opening match and dispensed with Germany’s Anna-Lena Groenefeld 6-4, 6-0 in just over an hour.
Dementieva’s sixth-seeded fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova started the day by damaging hopes of a first local champion with a 7-6 (7/3), 7-5 defeat of China’s No. 2 Zheng Jie.
BANGKOK OPEN
AFP, BANGKOK
Gilles Simon handed the Bangkok Open title to France for the second year in a row yesterday when he defeated Serb Viktor Troicki 7-5, 6-3 in the final.
Simon followed on from good friend and beaten semi-finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, last year’s champion at the Impact Arena.
“I had a difficult match, but I found a way to win. I really enjoyed myself today,” said world No. 10 Simon, who is in the chase for one of the eight spots in the ATP World Tour Finals in London.
It was Simon’s sixth career title.
“I’ve been feeling good and playing well all week,” Simon said. “I had to fight for this win over Viktor.”
Simon got a break back after losing his serve in the ninth game of the opening set, before finishing with a second straight break of the Serb. In the second set, the Frenchman lifted his game, taking the title on his second match point.
■MALAYSIA OPEN
AP, KUALA LUMPUR
Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia beat Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-4, 7-5 to win the Malaysia Open yesterday.
Davydenko’s third straight win extended his record to 6-1 over Verdasco and gave him a third title this year. He has also won the German Open in Hamburg and Croatia Open in Umag.
“I played well, but there were lucky points,” Davydenko said. “If it had gone into the third set, I don’t know what would have happened.”
The second-seeded Verdasco praised his Russian opponent.
“I want to congratulate Davydenko. He played very well. It was a great match, but not so great for me,” Verdasco said.
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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
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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