Twelve players ranked in the WTA top 100, including Jarmila Groth of Australia and Kimiko Date Krumm of Japan, have entered this year’s OEC Taipei Ladies Open, organizers said yesterday.
The top-seeded Groth, who won the tournament in 2008, is the highest ranking player in the field at No. 42, followed by Date Krumm at No. 56.
They will be joined by local favorites Chan Yung-jan, Chang Kai-chen, Hsieh Su-wei and Chuang Chia-jung at the Taipei Arena from Nov. 1.
The total purse for the ITF event is US$100,000, according to the Chinese Taipei Tennis Association. ITF tournaments are a tier below WTA events, which have minimum purses of US$220,000.
Veteran Date Krumm, who retired in 1993 and returned to tennis in 2008, and Alicia Molik, the women’s singles bronze medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, who ranked as high as eighth and is now 98th, are among a competitive group of players capable of winning this year’s event.
Rising German star Sabine Lisicki, a women’s singles quarter-finalist at Wimbledon last year, should wow crowds with serves that can reach nearly 200kph.
Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia, Romina Oprandi of Italy, Ayumi Morita of Japan and China’s Peng Shuai are also set to compete.
Chan Yung-jan, the highest-ranked Taiwanese player at No. 81, is the defending champion, having defeated Morita in the singles final last year.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite