Four-time defending champion Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the semi-finals of the WTA New Haven Open on Thursday, but a slight right knee injury put a damper on the celebration.
“I decided straight away after I felt it,” she said. “I played one more point and decided I needed to see the trainer because I felt a sharp pain in there. I needed to treat it.”
The Danish third seed, who is set to be the eighth seed in next week’s US Open, defeated Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-1 in the quarter-finals and remained unbeaten at New Haven, improving to 20-0.
Photo: AFP
After a Cibulkova double fault on the next point, Wozniacki walked to the chair umpire and pointed to her knee. She sat down and got a bag of ice from a cooler.
She continued with the knee wrapped and won with ease, improving to 8-3 all-time against Cibulkova, but planned to have the knee examined before deciding if she would play yesterday.
Wozniacki is scheduled to face Russian seventh seed Maria Kirilenko, who beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-1, 6-2, in another quarter-final on Thursday.
Photo: AFP
Wozniacki is the four-time defending champion and looking to become just the fourth woman to win the same WTA event in five consecutive years.
The former world number one played with a slight limp at times Thursday and flexed her leg between points.
“You need to judge whether you can continue or you cannot,” she said. “You need to judge whether it’s going to get worse or it’s not. That’s all decisions you need to make yourself, decisions that are important because you don’t want to jeopardize long-term injury. Doesn’t matter what tournament it is.”
It is the second New Haven semi-final in three years for Kirilenko.
In the other half of the draw, second-seeded Petra Kvitova swept past Lucie Safarova, 6-3, 6-3.
TEXAS OPEN
AFP, DALLAS, Texas
Italy’s Roberta Vinci advanced to her first final of the season by overpowering Bojana Jovanovski 6-0, 6-0 at the WTA Tour’s Texas Open on Thursday.
The third-seeded Vinci advanced to yesterday’s final, where she was set to face second seed Jelena Jankovic who also won in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4 over Aussie Casey Dellacqua.
Vinci needed just 52 minutes to overwhelm Jovanovski as she improved her career record against the Serb to 3-0.
“I played well. She played so-so,” Vinci said. “But 6-0, 6-0 is not easy. You have to stay focused every point, every game.”
Vinci posted her third career “double-bagel” victory and second against a Serb in one month. She beat former world number one Ana Ivanovic by the same score in Montreal two weeks ago.
Yesterday, Vinci was to be up against another former world number one from Serbia when she takes on Jankovic.
“I know it will be tough, but I have a chance to win tomorrow for sure,” Vinci said. “I will try my best. I’m so happy to be in my first final of the year.”
Jankovic had to rally from a 40-0 deficit in the final game to eliminate southpaw Dellacqua.
“It was a battle out there. I think Casey played really well,” Jankovic said. “There were a lot of tough games and points. It’s never easy to play a left-handed player. It has been a long time since we played each other. I hung in there and stayed positive and made it in two sets.”
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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