Arjun Atwal of India ran off three straight birdies early in his round at the AT&T National and wound up in a four-way tie for the lead with a 4-under 66 on a gorgeous Thursday in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Tiger Woods let a decent round get away from him, throwing away five shots over the last five holes and opened with a 3-over 73, making it a challenge just to make the cut.
Atwal, who made seven birdies for the day, had no such complaints after finding himself atop the leaderboard with Nick Watney, Joe Ogilvie and Byron Nelson winner Jason Day on a tough day at Aronimink, where the pin locations made it difficult to attack the flags.
Atwal recovered from a bogey on his opening hole with three straight birdies, all of them inside 12 feet, and kept the mistakes to a minimum.
Woods, who won the AT&T National last year at Congressional, had his best round of the year off the tee. He hit driver on all but three holes on the tree-lined course with rough nearly as thick as it was in the US Open at Pebble Beach. He just didn’t give himself that many birdie chances, and when he did, he couldn’t make any.
■FRENCH OPEN
REUTERS, SAINT QUENTIN, FRANCE
Part-timer Jean Van de Velde was a surprise contender in the French Open first round on Thursday.
The 44-year-old Frenchman has given up playing full-time on the European Tour but showed his old flair in a five-under-par round of 66 to lie second, three strokes behind Robert Jan Derksen of the Netherlands.
Van de Velde, twice a tour winner but best known for his dramatic late collapse to lose the 1999 British Open, plays only a handful of events these days at the end of a career blighted by injury and illness.
“I came here with no expectation, so that takes off the pressure, but I know the course like the back of my hand,” Van de Velde told reporters.
Twice tour winner Derksen produced a flawless card as he tries to lift a modest season in which he lies 74th on the order of merit.
The Dutchman earned top spot with a run of four birdies in five holes from the 14th.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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