World No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska easily defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 6-3 in her opening match at the Bank of the West Classic on Wednesday.
Radwanska, the top seed in the WTA Tour hard-court tournament, had a bye through the first round and won 60 percent of her first-serve points in the 84-minute second-round contest.
She next faces sixth seed Varvara Lepchenko of the US, who beat Tamira Paszek 6-4, 6-4 earlier on Wednesday.
Photo: EPA
It was the eighth career meeting between the two since Schiavone won their first match 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 in the semi-finals in Luxembourg in 2006. Schiavone went on to win the next three meetings.
Radwanska, after Wednesday’s match, has won the last four, all in straight sets.
Radwanska is seeking her third title of the year after winning in Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney. She has 12 career singles titles, including 10 on hard courts.
In the only other match on Wednesday, fifth seed Sorana Cirstea cruised past US qualifier Coco Vandeweghe 6-3, 6-3.
Cirstea moves on to the next round where she faces Olga Govortsova, who upset second seed Samantha Stosur in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
BAKU CUP
AP, BAKU
Top seed and defending champion Bojana Jovanovski lost in the second round of the Baku Cup on Wednesday, falling to wild-card entry Ons Jabeur of Tunisia 6-2, 7-5.
Jovanovski won only two points in the first four games, but the Serb broke to lead 5-3 in the second set before Jabeur broke back twice to win.
Also on Wednesday, second seed Donna Vekic of Croatia defeated Ukrainian qualifier Tetyana Arefyeva 6-1, 6-2, while third seed Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa knocked out Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
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