Taiwan Beer remained unbeaten at 3-0 with a 94-85 win over Kinmen Liquor on the third day of play at the Hualien Probation Cup Basketball Tournament on Friday.
Shang Wei-fan championed a second-half rally by Taiwan Beer, who wasted a double-digit lead in the third quarter and needed another rally to stay on the winning track. Veteran center Shang, who was released by Kinmen Liquor in the offseason, racking up 14 points, showing his former club they might have made a mistake in letting him go.
With the departure of top scorer Lin “The Beast” Chih-jeh to China and big man Wu Dai-hao and sharpshooter Yang Yu-ming nursing injuries, Taiwan Beer depended on Shang and center Hao Hsiao-yuan to lead an attack that focused more inside than on the rapid-firing perimeter game for which they’re known.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
US STARS 75, SHANXI ZHONGYU 71
The US Stars upset CBA’s Shanxi Zhongyu to earn the respect of the Chinese in their third game of the tournament.
Shanxi found themselves without the service of talented center Donta Smith when the hired gun from the US fouled out in the fourth quarter.
The absence of Smith gave the Stars a window of opportunity and they overcame a 13-point deficit in the second half to pull off the upset.
LUXGENS 94, TEAM MALAYSIA 64
The Yulon Luxgens won their second game of the tournament with a convincing victory over an outclassed Malaysian team.
Team Malaysia proved no match for the Luxgens, who played reserve players mostly but still managed to win by a wide margin.
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