Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez beat Kazakhstan’s Galina Voskoboeva in the final of the US$220,000 Hansol Korea Open yesterday to win her fifth WTA title.
The 29-year-old Martinez Sanchez defeated Voskoboeva, a first-time WTA finalist, 7-6, 7-6 to win her first hardcourt tournament on the WTA and US$37,000 in prize money.
The two players had marched to the final without losing a set on the way, with the unseeded Voskoboeva producing two upsets when she put out eighth-seed Ekaterina Makarova and fifth-seed Polona Hercog.
However, the sixth-seeded Spaniard prevailed yesterday with her tricky left-handed serve and outstanding net play. She blanked the 26-year-old Kazakh 7-0 in the first set tie-break, then held off three set points to take the second set to a tiebreak, and rolled through that one 7-2.
Yesterday’s two-hour showdown was the sixth WTA final for Martinez Sanchez, but her first on a hard court. She is also the first Spaniard to win a WTA title on the surface since Anabel Medina Garrigues won the Canberra International in Australia in January 2006.
Martinez Sanchez’ first five finals, of which she won four, were all on clay.
PAN PACIFIC OPEN
AP, TOKYO
Ninth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland coasted to a 6-1, 6-1 win over Japanese wild card Misaki Doi in the first round of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo Yesterday.
After struggling with her serve in the first set, Radwanska won 10 out of 10 points on her first serve in the second set to close out the match in one hour, five minutes at Ariake Colosseum.
Defending champion Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, the top-seeded player in the US$2 million tournament, has a first-round bye as does second-seeded Maria Sharapova of Russia.
In other first-round matches, 11th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia beat Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands 6-4, 6-3.
In the late game, Kaia Kanepi, Estonia, def. Flavia Pannetta, Italy, 3-6, 6-4, 6 4.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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