TENNIS
Taiwan’s Yang in finals
Taiwan’s Yang Tsung-hua continued his strong run at the ATP Beijing Challenger on Saturday with a straight sets victory over Lim Yong-kyu of South Korea to reach the finals in a Challenger-tier event for the first time in his career. The 20-year-old Yang, currently ranked a career-high 250, topped the South Korean 6-4, 6-4 in just under 80 minutes. Yang will face Farrukh Dustov of Uzbekistan in the final of the US$75,000 Challenger event, which is one flight below the top level ATP Tour. At the same venue in an ITF Women’s Circuit tournament, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei defeated Irena Pavlovic of France 6-4, 7-5 in 1 hour, 50 minutes to advance to the final against Kurumi Nara of Japan. Meanwhile, top-seeded Taiwanese duo Chan Yung-jan and Chan Hao-ching reached the finals of the women’s doubles and will face the unseeded duo of Tetiana Luzhanska of Ukraine and Zheng Saisai of China for the top prize.
BASEBALL
Nicasio operated on
Colorado Rockies pitcher Juan Nicasio had surgery on Saturday to stabilize a broken vertebra in his neck, a day after he was struck in the head by a line drive in a MLB game. Rockies trainer Keith Dugger said neurosurgeon Peter Witt inserted two screws into the damaged vertebra and also placed a small metal plate on the back of the Nicasio’s neck. The 24-year-old player remains under sedation in the hospital, but has movement in all of his extremities, the team said. “He can move his arms. He can talk. He can sit up with help,” Dugger said. “He remembers every detail of that game, including that pitch. He was squeezing my hand so tight in the room today. It’s a good sign. I’m optimistic, but we just don’t know. We’ll know more once we start getting into the therapy, at about the six-week mark.” Nicasio was hurt in the second inning of the Rockies’ game on Friday when a drive off the bat of Washington’s Ian Desmond hit the right side of his head.
CYCLING
Sagan wins Pologne Tour
Slovakian rider Peter Sagan of the Liquigas team won the 68th edition of the Tour de Pologne on Saturday, after taking second spot on the final stage. The seventh and last stage, run over 128km, was won by Germany’s Marcel Kittel of the Skil-Shimano outfit for his fourth stage win of the race. It was a dramatic final day on the race with Sagan finally edging out Ireland’s Daniel Martin, of the Garmin-Cervelo team, who had won Friday’s penultimate stage, by just six seconds in the overall classification. “This is one of the greatest successes of my career,” Sagan told the PAP news agency. “I had doubts over whether or not I would be able to get back the yellow jersey that I lost yesterday. For me, the race was training for the Tour of Spain, but to win it, that’s not too bad.”
FOOTBALL
Hall of Fame ceremony held
Three-time Super Bowl champion Shannon Sharpe, receiver Deion Sanders and star rusher Marshall Faulk were among seven inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in ceremonies on Saturday. Gridiron videographer Ed Sabol and players Richard Dent, Chris Hanburger and the late Les Richter were the others enshrined into the sporting museum after being selected for the honor in February on the eve of the Super Bowl. Sharpe, a tight end, won two NFL titles with Denver and another with Baltimore, retiring in 2003 with 815 catches for 10,060 yards and 62 touchdowns. “I am so honored,” Sharpe said. “You don’t know what this means for me. This is the fraternity of all fraternities.”
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