Taiwan’s Chang Kai-chen lasted just 73 minutes at Wimbledon yesterday as she was beaten 6-4, 6-2 in the women’s singles first round by New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic.
Chang landed 70 percent of her first serves, two of them aces, but 25 unforced errors compared with Erakovic’s 11 told the story as the world No. 136 Taiwanese fell at the first hurdle at the All England Club in southwest London.
Champion Serena Williams, playing just her third match in 11 months, struggled past Frenchwoman Aravane Rezai 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 to reach the last 64 and promptly broke down in tears.
Photo: AFP
The 29-year-old, seeded seven after missing almost a year because of a foot injury and life-threatening illness following her fourth Wimbledon title, was inconsolable as she walked off court and during her TV interview.
“I usually don’t cry, I don’t understand it. It’s been so hard, I never dreamed I’d be here,” said Williams, who had described her battle against blood clots on her lungs as like being on her death bed. “I just wanted to win at least one match here and since I’m not playing doubles it was a really big win for me. It’s been so hard and has been a disaster year. To be able to come back at Wimbledon is pretty awesome, I didn’t expect to play or do anything. I’m just excited.”
Watched by US pop superstar Diana Ross and England’s Ashes-winning cricketers up in the Royal Box, Williams dropped the first two games of the match against Rezai, before racing through the next six games to take the first set.
Photo: EPA
Rezai, whose ranking has slumped to No. 61 from a career high 15 last year after she suffered a controversial and public split from her father, dug deep to break in the sixth game of the second set on her way to leveling the match, but Williams, desperate not to become only the second defending champion to lose in the first round, shrugged off her stamina and timing problems to dominate the final set, claiming victory with her 13th ace.
She next tackles Romania’s Simona Halep for a place in the last 32.
India’s Sania Mirza could also be forgiven for shedding a few tears as she was knocked out of Wimbledon, losing 7-6 (7/4), 2-6, 6-3 in the first round to grieving Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano, recently bereaved by the death of her fiance.
Photo: EPA
Playing with her left knee taped up, Mirza, 24, gave Razzano a close run on a breezy Court Nine at the All England Club, where she enjoyed plenty of Indian support.
In the first set, Mirza broke twice for a 3-0 lead, but Razzano broke back immediately and took the next game to love as the Indian played herself into trouble with unforced errors.
Mirza, the world No. 60, served for the set at 5-4 up, but yelled in fury as two attempted drop shots went wrong and Razzano broke, before going on to take the tiebreak.
In the second set, again Mirza took an early lead and this time held it, breaking again to take the second set 6-2.
The deciding set went with serve until Razzano broke for 4-3, then held serve, before breaking her opponent to take the match.
Razzano played through the French Open wearing a black ribbon in memory of her fiance Stephane Vidal, who died from a brain tumor last month.
On Monday, Rafael Nadal made a dazzling start to his Wimbledon title defense with an easy win over Michael Russell of the US, before home favorite Andy Murray produced some indoor fireworks to join the Spaniard in the second round.
World No. 1 Nadal, playing at the grass-court Grand Slam for the first time as defending champion after injury denied him the honor in 2009, beat Russell 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 after taking a few games to get to grips with the 33-year-old journeyman.
After heavy rain shut down play on the 17 courts not equipped with a roof, Murray made full use of Centre Court’s translucent sliding canopy to give British fans some cheer, despite a scare against Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver.
World No. 4 Murray, who beat Stanislas Wawrinka in the only other whole Wimbledon match to be played under the £80 million (US$129 million) roof in 2009, reeled off the last 15 games to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0.
Canada’s fast-rising 31st seed Milos Raonic, a potential third-round opponent for Nadal, fired down 25 aces to beat Frenchman Marc Gicquel 6-3, 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 and Czech Tomas Berdych, runner-up last year, crushed Italy’s Filippo Volandri.
Ninth seed Gael Monfils beat Germany’s Matthias Bachinger in straight sets and he was joined in the second round by fellow Frenchman and former semi-finalist Richard Gasquet.
Three-time runner-up Andy Roddick got no further than the knock-up against Andreas Beck on Court One before the rain arrived, but fellow American Mardy Fish, the 10th seed, got though against Spain’s Marcel Granollers.
Murray’s test against Gimeno-Traver could hold him in good stead as he aims to become Britain’s first male Grand Slam champion since 1936.
In front of a surprising amount of empty seats, Murray was initially caught cold by an opponent playing inspired “indoor” tennis to take the opening set.
At 3-3 in the second set the outcome of the match was still far from certain, before fourth seed Murray suddenly moved up a level to produce some exhibition tennis.
“It’s like almost too perfect,” said Murray, who romped through the final two sets in 46 minutes. “There’s obviously no wind, no sun, no elements to contend with. It’s a different kind of grass-court tennis.”
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