South Korea took an irreversible 3-0 lead over Taiwan by winning an excruciating five-set doubles match in the Asia-Oceania zone Group I first round yesterday.
Lim Yong-kyu and Seol Jae-min edged their higher-ranked opponents Huang Liang-chi and Yi Chu-huan 6-4, 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 3-6, 7-5 in a nail-biting match that lasted for more than four hours.
Only an hour before the crucial doubles match began, Taiwan sent in Huang instead of earlier announced Yang Tsung-hua in an apparent bid to catch South Korea off guard.
However, the hosting team shed little sweat to win the two sets amid partisan support from local fans.
Taiwan stormed back hard, picking up the following two sets, but unforced errors by Huang gave South Korea the final set and the match.
In the other Asia/Oceania Group I ties, Lleyton Hewitt and Chris Guccione gave Australia a winning 3-0 lead against China, beating Zhang Ze and Li Zhe 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.
The match started an hour late due to rain on the grass courts at the Geelong Lawn Tennis Club.
Australia will host South Korea in the next round.
The winner will then progress to a losing first-round World Group country in an attempt to return to the elite eight-team competition for next year.
Meanwhile, Uzbekistan wrapped up their tie against New Zealand, winning the doubles in straight sets to take an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the match.
Denis Istomin and Farrukh Dustov combined to beat Dan King-Turner and Michael Venus 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) 6-1.
The Uzbekistan pair broke New Zealand on King-Turner’s serve at 3-3 in the first set and forced a tie break in the second by breaking Venus when New Zealand led 4-2 after Dustov had dropped his serve.
From then on it was all Uzbekistan, as Istomin and Dustov raced through the third set 6-1, leaving two dead rubbers to be played in the reverse singles today.
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