Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic won a battle of former prodigies, beating Australia’s Jelena Dokic in straight sets to reach her first -quarter--finals in 12 years at the WTA Strasbourg Open on Wednesday.
The 29-year-old US-based player, who had to come through the qualifiers in Stasbourg, France, this week, eased past Dokic 6-2, 6-2 in their second-round match.
It was a remarkable turnaround of fortunes for Lucic, who disappeared from the circuit for five years because of personal and -family-related problems after a promising junior career during which she won Grand Slam titles.
Lucic was just 15 when she won the first WTA event she played at Bol, Croatia, in 1997, and the following year won a Grand Slam doubles title at the Australian Open, rising to her career-high ranking of number 32.
She was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 1999, but thereafter failed to reach the quarter-finals of a tournament, and did not play in a WTA event from 2004 to 2006.
The breakthrough came last year when she finished the year ranked No. 105, her highest season-ending ranking since 1999.
She had little resistance from 28-year-old Dokic, a former world No. 4, who also had family problems in the past.
Dokic, the 2000 Wimbledon semi-finalist, won her first title in almost nine years at Kuala Lumpur last month.
However, she could find no way past Lucic, who next meets Spanish seventh-seed Anabel Medina Garrigues, a three-time champion here, who beat Serb Bojana Jovanovski 6-2, 6-0.
Top-seed Marion Bartoli of France advanced when Britain’s Elena Baltacha retired after suffering a right lumbar spine injury suffered in practice with a back problem, and next plays Czech eighth-seed Lucie Hradecka for a semi-final place.
Second-seed Andrea Petkovic of Germany beat China’s Zhang Shuai 6-1, 6-3 and next meets Russian fifth-seed Maria Kirilenko.
Also through are Russia’s Nadia Petrova, the fourth-seed, and Slovak Daniela Hantuchova, the sixth-seed, who was playing here for the first time since achieving her first WTA quarter-final appearance ever in Strasbourg as a 17-year-old back in 2000.
Former world No. 4 Hantuchova beat France’s Mathilde Johansson 6-4, 6-2.
“Today was very hot and very fast, but that’s how it’s going to be in Paris [Roland Garros],” Hantuchova said. “I’m really glad to be playing here because I think it’s a perfect preparation for next week.”
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