Women’s top seed Victoria Azarenka made hard work of her first-round win on Monday, while Roger Federer moved closer to a first singles medal after breezing into the last 16 on a packed Wimbledon Centre Court.
Despite storming to an early lead, Belarusian Azarenka, who needs to win gold to guarantee retaining the world No. 1 ranking, dropped the second set to Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu before regaining her pose to take the match 6-1, 3-6, 6-1.
“Today I couldn’t get into the match in the second set. There were too many mistakes, but I’m glad I could turn things around and finish as strong as I started,” said the 23-year-old, who kissed the net at the end of the match after her final shot bounced off it before dropping on the winning side.
Photo: EPA
“I get more nervous when I play for my country than when I play for myself. Hopefully, the next round will be much easier,” she said after the match, which had been delayed from Sunday because of rain.
World No. 1 Federer, who dropped a set in a first-round wobble against Colombia’s Alejandro Falla on Saturday, made easier work of his second-round tie, defeating France’s Julien Benneteau 6-2, 6-2 in less than an hour.
Federer was taken to five sets by Benneteau in the third round at Wimbledon last month and came back from two down before going on to win the match and then the title for the seventh time.
The Swiss 17-times Grand Slam champion was back in action in the men’s doubles, where he and partner Stanislas Wawrinka were put through their paces by Japan’s Kei Nishikori and Go Soeda before securing a 6-7, 6-4, 6-4 win to start the defense of their Beijing gold medal.
Out of the running in the doubles are Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Viktor Troicki, who lost their opening match against Sweden’s Johan Brunstrom and Robert Lindstedt 7-6, 6-3.
The US’ Venus Williams, aiming to become the first tennis player to win four Olympic golds, made easy work of her first-round singles match against No. 9 seed and French Open finalist Sara Errani.
Venus dispatched the Italian 6-3, 6-1 in just over an hour, before chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A” with a delighted Court Two crowd.
At the same time on Court One, her sister and doubles partner Serena advanced to the third round with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Poland’s Urszula Radwanska, while later eighth seed Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki dropped a set against Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer in her 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 second-round win.
In a packed schedule of play, because of a rainy Sunday which meant just 12 of 48 matches were completed, the Williams sisters also took to court for a second time on Monday to defend their women’s doubles title with an easy 6-3, 6-2 win over Romania’s Sorana Cirstea and Simona Halep.
To the delight of a noisy home crowd, Britain’s Laura Robson and Heather Watson, who both got into the singles after injury withdrawals, booked their places in the second round.
Robson, ranked 96 in the world, beat No. 23 Czech Lucie Safarova 7-6, 6-4, while Watson saw off Spaniard Silvia Soler Espinosa 6-2, 6-2.
“I loved the crowd, they were amazing. It’s completely different to Wimbledon, they were a lot louder. I love it, I love loud,” said Watson, laughing.
With players getting used to a noisier crowd than at the usually sedate Wimbledon, the US’ Andy Roddick was in good spirits during his 7-5, 6-4 win over of Slovakia’s Martin Klizan.
“Don’t worry, it will get better,” he joked when a baby started crying in the second set.
However, it may not get better for the world No. 22, who now faces second-seed Djokovic in the second round.
“The biggest thing about the top guys is that they don’t make mistakes when they should make mistakes, they repeat the same pattern over and over and over,” the 29-year-old told reporters.
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