Reigning US Women’s Open champion Ryu So-yeon of South Korea was ousted 2-up by the US’ Vicky Hurst on Saturday in a quarter-final at the LPGA Sybase Match Play Championship.
World No. 13 Ryu, an LPGA rookie seeking her first triumph since her major victory last year, lost after a third round that saw World No. 1 Yani Tseng of Taiwan and World No. 2 Choi Na-yeon of South Korea eliminated.
“We both played pretty solid the whole day,” Hurst said. “She kind of let it go at the end, but it was pretty close.”
Photo: AFP
Yesterday’s semi-finals for the US$1.5 million event send 37th-ranked Hurst against Taiwan’s Candie Kung and the US’ Morgan Pressel facing Spain’s Azahara Munoz. Winners played yesterday afternoon for the title at Hamilton Farm Golf Club.
Kung, the lowest-ranked of the last four at 49th, ousted Tseng 3 and 2 to reach the last eight, then outlasted Paraguay’s 41st-ranked Julieta Granada 2 and 1 to stay in contention for her first title since 2008.
Pressel, seeking her first LPGA triumph in more than four years, took out Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist 5 and 4 to book a semi-final date with Munoz, who eliminated the US’ Stacy Lewis by the same score.
“This afternoon I had a little bit of a break and didn’t need to make quite as many birdies, but tomorrow I’m going to need to make the birdies again, because I’m sure ‘Atha’ is going to come out strong,” she said.
Pressel, who turns 24 on Wednesday, has not won an LPGA title since the 2008 Kapalua Classic. She won the 2007 Kraft Nabisco crown to become the youngest major winner in LPGA history.
“I definitely want to win again and I’ll have a chance tomorrow,” Pressel said. “No matter what happens, this is the best I’ve played in a long time. I’m going to give it everything I have tomorrow.”
Ryu seized the lead three times early against Hurst, only to have the American square the match each time. Hurst took her first lead with a par at the par-4 15th, then birdied the par-3 16th for a 2-up lead.
Ryu birdied the 17th to create the only quarter-final that reached the 18th hole, but Hurst parred the last to win the hole and secure the triumph.
Granada and Kung were all-square through 14 holes, Kung having taken the lead three times and Granada having answered within two holes each time.
However, Kung won the 15th with a birdie and the 16th with a par, before they each parred the 17th to hand Kung the triumph.
World No. 15 Pressel, who eliminated Choi in 19 holes in round three, was not pushed so greatly in her quarter-final.
Pressel won the par-3 third when Nordqvist bogeyed, took the par-5 fifth with a birdie and captured the par-4 seventh on another bogey from the Swede.
After they exchanged the first two holes on the back nine, Pressel birdied the par-3 12th and par-4 13th, then matched Nordqvist’s par at 14 to end the match.
Munoz, ranked 19th, ousted the highest-seeded player in the last eight by beating sixth-ranked Lewis, who won at Mobile last month.
The Spaniard eagled the par-5 second hole and won the par-3 third and par-4 seventh and ninth, all after bogeys by Lewis. Munoz birdied the 11th to go 5-up before Lewis won her only hole with a birdie at 12.
Munoz, 24, won the 13th with a par and halved the 14th with a par to advance to a match against her friend Pressel.
“We both want to win bad, so I think it’s going to be fun,” Munoz said.
“I wish I wasn’t playing her, to be honest,” she added.
Tseng’s ouster was the top upset early, but no shock to her after a tough week.
“I wasn’t surprised. I lost because I played bad this week,” Tseng said. “But it’s disappointing.”
Kung went 3-up after seven holes, Tseng won back-to-back holes before Kung began the back nine with a birdie to win the 10th.
Tseng won the 13th with a par to pull within 1-down, but Kung birdied 15 and 16 to close out the match.
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