Beaten Australian Open finalist Maria Sharapova made a winning start at the WTA Paris Open on Wednesday, beating South Africa’s Chanelle Scheepers 6-3, 6-1 to reach the last 16.
Given a first-round bye owing to her top seeding, the Russian world No. 3 was competing in her first match at the Pierre de Coubertin arena. Sharapova had been forced out of Russia’s Fed Cup victory over Spain on Sunday because of a cold, but she showed no signs of ill health against world No. 44 Scheepers.
The 24-year-old three-time Grand Slam-winner will face either Romania’s Monica Niculescu or Angelique Kerber of Germany in the next round.
Photo: AFP
“I had a few problems finding my rhythm at the start,” Sharapova said. “The court is pretty quick, but I really like these conditions and once I’d got my bearings, it went better.”
With Li Na and Jelena Jankovic having both been forced out of the tournament by injury, Sharapova’s rival for the title is likely to be French second seed Marion Bartoli.
Italian seventh seed Roberta Vinci reached round two with a straight sets win over Romanian Simona Halep, but eighth-seeded Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues fell 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 to home favorite Pauline Parmentier.
Photo: AFP
“There were lots of people who are very important to me around the court,” said Parmentier, the French No. 2. “That allowed me to push myself to the limit. I forced myself to do it.”
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