Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun crashed out of the second round of the men’s singles at the China Open in Beijing yesterday and there was a shock with Richard Gasquet losing, while top women’s seeds Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova reached the last eight, both recording their third consecutive straight-sets victory.
Spain’s Feliciano Lopez defeated Taiwanese No. 1 Lu in straight sets, 6-3, 7-6 (9/7), while fifth-seed Gasquet of France also suffered a second-round defeat, losing to Chinese wild-card Zhang Ze in three sets.
Ze defeated Gasquet, who won the Thailand Open last week to end a two-and-a-half-year title drought, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
Photo: AFP
The Frenchman admitted afterwards that his exploits in Bangkok had left him tired, but said Ze, cheered on by an excited home support, had been the better player and deserved his victory.
“Last week, I played a big tournament. I’m not physically 100 percent, but it’s not the reason I lost,” Gasquet said. “He’s talented, he played aggressive and fast, and at the end he played better than me. He deserves this victory.”
In the women’s draw, world No. 1 and top seed Azarenka dispatched Russian qualifier Elena Vesnina 6-3, 6-3 to set up a quarter-final tie with Switzerland’s Romina Oprandi.
The Belarussian 23-year-old has yet to drop a set in the tournament, defeating France’s Alize Cornet 6-1, 6-0 in the first round and Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-4, 6-2 in the second.
“It was a little bit of a challenge today, for sure,” Azarenka said. “I felt like I could have been a bit more aggressive and not hesitate so much. When I won that last point, I was relieved and happy to finish the match in two sets.”
Second seed Sharapova, No. 2 in the WTA rankings behind Azarenka, defeated Slovenian qualifier Polona Hercog, ranked 90th in the world, 6-0, 6-2 at the National Tennis Center in Beijing.
Sharapova, 25, had beaten Romania’s Simona Halep 7-5, 7-5 in the first round and Sorana Cirstea, also of Romania, 6-2, 6-2 in the second.
“I had a long first round, even though it was two sets, but today and yesterday was definitely a little bit quicker,” Sharapova said. “I played really well in the beginning and got a little tense in the second set, but I felt like I really needed that challenge. It’s nice to be in the quarter-final stage of this tournament.”
Sharapova faces her first real test of the Premier Mandatory event in the next round when she takes on either fifth seed Angelique Kerber of Germany, who beat former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.
The China Open is the fourth and final compulsory tournament of the women’s calendar, behind only the Grand Slams and the season-ending WTA Championships in prestige.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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