Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker and holder Ian Poulter made early exits as the opening round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship lived up to its reputation of wild unpredictability on Wednesday.
There were 14 upsets in all from the 32 matches at Dove Mountain’s Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, fulfilling world No. 1 Lee Westwood’s pre-tournament description of the first day as “one of the most exciting days of the year.”
Three-time champion Woods, striving to end a winless run of 15 months, was eliminated by 65th-ranked Dane Thomas Bjorn after 19 holes.
“I blew it,” the 14-time major winner said greenside after going out in the first round for a second time at this event. “I had a chance. I had all the momentum going down 18 and just gave it away.”
American world No. 8 Stricker, who claimed the 2001 Match Play title in Australia, was stunned by 17-year-old Italian Matteo Manassero 2 and 1.
Poulter, who beat fellow Englishman Paul Casey 4 and 2 in last year’s final to claim his first PGA Tour victory, was beaten by American Stewart Cink after 19 holes.
A tournament record eight matches went into extra holes, but three of the top four seeds ensured a measure of normalcy with comfortable victories on a day of dazzling sunshine, cool temperatures and gusting winds in the Arizona desert.
Top-seeded Briton Westwood never trailed in his match before beating 2007 champion Henrik Stenson of Sweden 3 and 2.
Second-ranked German Martin Kaymer completed a 7 and 6 demolition of South Korean Noh Seung-yul and fourth seed Phil Mickelson breezed past Australian Brendan Jones 6 and 5.
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