Luke Donald is in pole position to retain the PGA Championship title and return to the top of the world rankings after overnight leader James Morrison suffered a third-round meltdown at Wentworth.
Morrison had been four shots clear after a second-round 64, but the world No. 236 carded a woeful 81 on Saturday to leave him eight strokes behind Donald heading into yesterday’s final round.
As England’s Morrison struggled to recover after a quadruple bogey eight, a triple bogey eight and three other bogeys, Donald made light of testing conditions to take the lead.
His 69 was the joint best round of a windy day and the Englishman is well on course to secure the top eight finish needed to seize the No. 1 spot from Rory McIlroy, who missed a second successive cut on Friday.
The 34-year-old is now 11-under-par and two shots ahead of second-placed Justin Rose as he bids to follow Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie as the only players to make a successful defense of the European Tour’s flagship event.
Rose, who could move to a career-high fifth in the world, was one of only three players to break 70 in testing conditions.
Lawrie is in third spot on seven-under after a 72, while joint fourth are former Open champion Paul Lawrie and South African trio Branden Grace, Richard Sterne and Ernie Els, who was furious with tournament organizers for not keeping the greens well watered.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with