Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei has a chance to claim her second WTA Tour victory of the year today when she takes on Briatin’s Laura Robson in the final of the Guangzhou Open.
Hsieh, whose only previous win on the WTA Tour came at the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur in February against Petra Martic of Croatia, who retired with exhaustion after playing both her semi-final and final matches on the same day.
World No. 53 Hsieh overcame fourth seed Urszula Radwanska of Poland 6-1, 3-6, 6-0 in her semi-final yesterday, setting up the showdown with Robson, who became the first British woman to reach a WTA Tour final in 22 days when she defeated third seed Sorana Cirstea of Romania 6-4, 6-2 in the second semi-final.
Photo: EPA
London-based Robson, who was born in Melbourne, Australia, but moved to England as a child, is ranked No. 74, but she has been steadily rising up the ranking and will be a tough test for the Taiwanese.
In the doubles, all of the remaining Taiwanese players were knocked out of the competition on Thursday.
KOREA OPEN
Top seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, the world No. 11, cruised into the semi-finals of the Korea Open yesterday when she dismantled seventh seed Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-3.
The Dane is set to face Russian eighth seed Ekaterina Makarova in the semi-finals today after the world No. 28 thrashed Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-1, 6-1 in their quarter-final.
In the other side of the singles draw, third seed Kaia Kanepi of Estonia defeated Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands 6-4, 6-4 to set up a semi-final against sixth seed Varvara Lepchenko of the US, who fought back from a set down to battle past Tamira Paszek of Austria 4-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4.
The final takes place in Seoul tomorrow.
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