Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the second round of the Swedish Open on Tuesday by defeating Alize Cornet of France 6-4, 6-4.
The Dane will next face Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden, who beat Andrea Hlavackova 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 in the clay-court WTA tournament.
In other first-round action, second-seeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy defeated Australia’s Olivia Rogowska 6-2, 7-5, while sixth-seeded Iveta Benesova of Russia crashed out of the tournament with a 6-2, 6-0 loss to Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
HALL OF FAME
AP, NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND
Top-seeded John Isner beat Karol Beck 6-3, 6-2 in the first round at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.
Isner entered the tournament on a wild-card entry after No. 1 seed and defending champion Mardy Fish withdrew when he was selected for the US Davis Cup team.
After Fish withdrew, Isner took over the grass-court tournament’s No. 1 seed by virtue of his No. 46 overall ranking in the world, which is the highest of any competitor in Newport this week.
A No. 1 has never won the title in the 35 years of the tournament.
BUDAPEST GRAND PRIX
AP, BUDAPEST
Top-seeded Roberta Vinci of Italy crushed Slovakia’s Lenka Jurikova 6-1, 6-0 to advance to the second round of the Budapest Grand Prix on Tuesday.
Vinci will next face Timea Babos of Hungary, who beat Anna Remondina of Italy 6-3, 7-6 (4).
Second-seeded Sara Errani of Italy downed Romania’s Madalina Gojnea 6-3, 6-1.
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