No. 2 seed Jack Sock of the US cruised into the quarter-finals of the OEC Kaohsiung ATP Challenger yesterday with a straight sets victory over Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia. The 20-year-old 2010 US Open junior title winner needed just over an hour to down his 312th-ranked opponent 6-4, 6-2.
Earlier in the day, qualifier Yuki Bhambri of India beat No. 7 seed Yuichi Sugita of Japan 7-6 (7/5), 7-5. The 477th-ranked former junior world No. 1 and 2009 junior Australian Open champion will face Alejandro Gonzalez for a place in the semi-finals after the Colombian world No. 114 beat Shuichi Sekiguchi in straight sets. The No. 4 seed won his encounter against the Japanese world No. 276 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.
In the day’s other singles showdown John-Patrick Smith won an all-Australian clash against Greg Jones 6-4, 6-4.
In the doubles, top seeds Robert Farah and Juan Sebastian Cabal of Colombia had few problems in their quarter-final against US pair Michael Russell and Rajeev Ram, winning 6-2, 6-3.
Things were not so straightforward for third seeds Treat Huey and Ruben Gonzales, but the duo from the Philippines bounced back after losing the first set to defeat Chen Ti of Taiwan and Lim Yong-kyu South Korea 4-6, 6-1, 13-11.
Later Taiwan’s Wang Chieh-fu and Bhambri teamed up to down Japanese duo Yuichi Sugita and Arata Onozawa 6-3, 6-4.
Today sees the clash between Taiwan’s top two players, Lu Yen-hsun and Jimmy Wang, for a place in the semi-finals. They have played each other 10 times during their professional careers, with Lu holding a slim 6-4 win advantage, although he has emerged victorious their past three meetings.
In the other singles quarter-finals Bhambri will face Gonzalez, Sock takes on Smith and No. 6 seed Matthew Ebden of Australia plays South Korea’s Lim.
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