Taiwan will need to win all three remaining matches in their Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group 1 first-round tie against China after a disastrous first day yesterday
In the first match at the Shanghai Xianxia Tennis Center, China’s Gong Mao-xin beat Yang Tsung-hua 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(5), 4-6, 8-6 in a five-set thriller.
Then Lu Yen-hsun suffered a shock defeat against Wu Di, a player ranked more than 300 places lower than the Taiwanese male No. 1.
Wu claimed the first set before Lu took the initiative by taking the next two sets fairly comfortably.
Wu had to win the remaining sets to stay in the match and duly did so to earn a 6-4, 3-6, 3-6, 7-5, 9-7 victory.
Taiwan’s Chen Ti and Yi Chu-huan must beat Gong and Zhe Li in today’s doubles and hope that Lu and Yang can triumph in tomorrow’s reverse singles.
One glimmer of hope for the Taiwanese is that Lu and Yang are both ranked higher than their prospective opponents, but, as Lu found out yesterday, upsets are not uncommon in the Davis Cup.
Should China win in Shanghai it will be their first Davis Cup triumph against Taiwan at the third time of asking.
The two countries last met in Taipei in 2007 when the hosts claimed a thrilling tie 3-2 following a victory by Jimmy Wang in the fifth and deciding rubber.
The winners of this weekend’s tie will face Australia in the second round in July.
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