Britain’s Justin Rose fired six birdies and had the day’s lowest score to earn a one-stroke lead following the second round of the AT&T National on Friday, while Tiger Woods barely made the cut.
Rose, who squandered a three-shot lead in the final round of last week’s Travelers Championship, took advantage of benign afternoon conditions for a bogey-free six-under 64.
“I didn’t really go out with the intention of going low. The round just evolved and happened,” Rose told reporters after signing for a seven-under 133 halfway total at Aronimink.
Just one shot back are Australia’s Jason Day (68) and South Korea’s Charlie Wi (65), while another 10 players head into the weekend within four strokes of the outright lead.
Defending champion Tiger Woods, who made the cut with no shots to spare, offset four bogeys with four birdies for an even-par 70 that left him 10 shots off the pace.
Woods drove the ball nicely, but missed a couple of short putts, including one at his penultimate hole.
While Rose, who won the Memorial tournament in Ohio last month, hopes to hang onto his lead this weekend and he is also hoping to secure a late exemption into The Open this month at St Andrews.
Rose said not making The Open in 2000 and again in 2005 when he was the first alternate, is not an experience he wants to go through again.
“You see all your buddies teeing it up and going out there and experiencing the Old Course [at St Andrews] in an Open and I was left on the driving range as a spare part. I never wanted to do that again,” he said.
■FRENCH OPEN
REUTERS, SAINT QUENTIN, FRANCE
Germany’s Martin Kaymer is in the hunt to claim back-to-back French Open victories after surging within one stroke of second-round leader Alejandro Canizares.
Canizares, son of former Ryder Cup player Jose Maria, fired a second 66 to finish on 10-under 132, while Kaymer returned a 67 on a day when play was suspended for two and a half hours because of a thunderstorm.
Dutchman Robert Jan Derksen, the overnight leader, was third on 134 after a round of 71.
The 25-year-old Kaymer’s season has been improving after his form suffered for a spell following his Abu Dhabi Championship triumph in January.
“I had a little downer after playing Doral [the WGC-CA Championship in March],” Kaymer told reporters after collecting four birdies. “I was hitting a lot of golf balls, but nothing was coming together. Now it’s definitely coming together.”
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