US Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki and former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic joined a growing list of early casualties at the Sydney International yesterday.
Frenchman Gael Monfils and Russia’s Vera Zvonereva also bowed out of the joint ATP-WTA event, succumbing to injury just a week before the Australian Open starts in Melbourne.
Monfils pulled out before hitting a ball at the Olympic tennis center because of a shoulder injury he sustained in Brisbane last week.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Zvonereva, who made her first grand slam semi-final in Australia last year, hobbled out of her first round match with countrywoman Elena Vesnina with a recurring ankle problem.
She retired with the scores locked at 3-3 in the first set.
A jet-lagged Wozniacki was knocked out by China’s Li Na 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Victoria Azarenka of Belarus was the only seeded woman to survive, coming from behind to beat Germany’s Sabine Lisicki 3-6, 6-1, 7-5.
Jankovic, who has slipped to eighth in the world rankings after sitting at the top 12 months ago, lost her opening round match 5-7, 6-1, 7-5 to Hungary’s Agnes Szavay.
■HOBART INTERNATIONAL
AP, HOBART, AUSTRALIA
Second-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel advanced to the second round of the Hobart International yesterday with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Olivia Rogowska of Australia.
Peer’s match was played without the problems that dogged her last week in Auckland, New Zealand, where she advanced to the semi-finals despite three days of anti-Israeli protests.
Acting on a noise complaint from tournament organizers, police officers made five arrests and about 20 demonstrators chanted and blew whistles outside the downtown Auckland tennis stadium during Peer’s quarter-final match last week.
Former top 10 player Alicia Molik of Australia beat India’s Sania Mirza 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 in a night match.
■HEINEKEN OPEN
AFP, AUCKLAND
Former world No. 3 David Nalbandian pulled out of the Heineken Open yesterday, throwing his Australian Open plans into serious doubt.
On the comeback trail after hip surgery in May, the Argentine suffered an abdominal strain while warming up.
Austrian sixth seed Jurgen Melzer battled back from a set down to beat Italian Fabio Fognini 5-7, 6-3, 6-2.
Earlier, Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci beat Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 6-3, 6-3 to progress to the second round.
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