Venus Williams wilted in Qatar’s desert heat on Tuesday as feisty Russian Elena Dementieva staged a remarkable WTA Championships comeback to defeat the title-holder 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 6-2.
Williams had led 6-3, 3-1 before Dementieva recovered to record only her third win in 12 meetings with the great American, and first since 2004.
Dementieva, playing in her ninth season-ender, stunned the seven-time major winner, clinging on even as Williams served for the match at 6-5 in the second set.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The 28-year-old Russian levelled the clash when Williams double-faulted on a fourth set point in the tie-breaker, before sprinting into a commanding 4-0 lead in the decider.
She secured the win with a running, crosscourt backhand after a two-hour, 41-minute marathon in testing, humid conditions.
“I had plenty of opportunities to open a big lead, but I just didn’t get enough balls in the court,” said Williams, who refused to blame the sweltering conditions. “I’m a Florida girl. It gets hot there too.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
Serena Williams overcame Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-6 (6), 7-5 later on Tuesday, improving her chance of ending the year as No. 1 and giving her a share of the lead in the Maroon Group with Dementieva.
Victoria Azarenka made a successful tournament debut by defeating Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-3 to lead the White Group.
The tournament features the top eight players in the world. The top two from each group advance to the semi-finals. Top-ranked Dinara Safina and No. 4 Caroline Wozniacki were to play their first match yesterday.
■DAVIS CUP
AP, WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK
Serena Williams is back on the US Fed Cup team for the first time since 2007.
Surprise US Open quarter-finalist Melanie Oudin is also on the squad announced on Tuesday by the US Tennis Association for the Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 final against host Italy.
Williams leads active women with 11 Grand Slam singles titles and is 4-0 in Fed Cup singles over her career. Her sister Venus is not on the team.
Top-ranked doubles player Liezel Huber and Alexa Glatch round out the squad.
■LYON GRAND PRIX
AP, LYON, FRANCE
Top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga served 14 aces and needed two tiebreakers to beat Kevin Kim of the US 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) in the first round of the Lyon Grand Prix on Tuesday.
Neither player faced a break point in the first set, but Kim saved two in the second as Tsonga started to get on top. Kim missed his chance to level the match as Tsonga, last year’s Australian Open finalist, rallied from 5-3 down in the second set tiebreaker.
Third-seeded Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia also progressed after beating Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina 6-3, 6-4.
Ljubicic, looking for his first title this season, won 29 of 33 points on first serve including seven aces. The defeat would have been heavier for Vassallo Arguello if he hadn’t saved 10 of 12 break points.
Seventh-seeded Benjamin Becker of Germany beat Paolo Lorenzi of Italy 6-2, 6-2, while No. 8 Albert Montanes of Spain topped Fabrice Santoro 6-4, 6-4. Also, David Guez of France beat Rajeev Ram of the US 6-2, 6-4, and Marc Gicquel downed Jerome Haehnel 6-1, 6-4 in an all-French match.
■VIENNA OPEN
AP, VIENNA
Top-seeded Marin Cilic eased past qualifier Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-2, 6-3 in the opening round of the Bank Austria Trophy Vienna Open on Tuesday.
Cilic, ranked 13th, has a slim chance of qualifying for next month’s ATP World Tour Finals, along with second-seeded Radek Stepanek and third-seeded Gael Monfils.
Another two-time winner on tour this year, Stepanek, defeated Lukasz Kubot of Poland 6-4, 6-1.
Fourth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber beat qualifier Dieter Kindlmann 6-1, 6-3 in an all-German match. Sixth-seeded Feliciano Lopez, the 2004 champion, defeated Austrian wild card Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-4, 6-4.
No. 7 Jurgen Melzer, Austria’s main hope, beat Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 7-6 (4), 7-6 (10). The 35th-ranked Melzer saved three set points in the second set before closing out the match on his third match point. Melzer has got at far as the quarter-finals three times, including last year, in his hometown event.
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
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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