Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Japan’s Ayumi Morita both slumped to surprise first-round straight-set defeats at the WTA event in Birmingham on Monday.
Neither 10th seed Hsieh nor Morita, seeded 11, put up much resistance as the former went down 6-2, 6-3 to American Jamie Hampton and the latter 6-4, 6-0 against Alison van Uytvanck of Belgium.
There was further disappointment for the Asian interest in the tournament — a warm-up for Wimbledon, which gets underway in two weeks — as veteran Kimiko Date Krumm of Japan bowed out 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) against Russia’s Alla Kudryavtseva.
Hampton’s performance was particularly eye-catching because it was only the third ever game on grass for the 23-year-old, who came to the tournament on the back of an impressive last-16 showing at the French Open.
“It was the first time I ever played this tournament and one of my first times on grass, so I’m still kind of getting used to it and used to the movement,” Hampton said. “But I thought it was a good match for me. She’s [Hsieh] really tough on grass because her ball stays really low. I served well when I needed to and played good, aggressive tennis in the second set.”
However, it was not all good news for the US challenge as defending champion Melanie Oudin, who came through qualifying last year to win the title, crashed out by the score of 6-3, 6-1 against Croatia’s former world junior No. 4 Ajla Tomljanovic.
It was a welcome win for the 20-year-old, who had to come through qualifying herself after taking a break, having suffered two bouts of mononucleosis last year.
Her illness is not uncommon among tennis players, with former French Open finalist Robin Soderling having been hit by it.
“Physically, I’m still not quite where I want to be yet, but I’m getting stronger with every tournament,” Tomljanovic said.
“It’s a horrible illness and lots of players, like Mario Ancic, have been forced out of tennis because of it,” Tomljanovic added. “I actually talked to Mario’s brother and he said not to rush back. It ended up being my smartest decision to take the rest of the season off and just to prepare for 2013.”
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