Ana Ivanovic started her quest for a third Generali Ladies title by defeating Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 6-2, 6-4, while second-seeded Sloane Stephens overcame a slow start to beat Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia 6-3, 6-1 in the first round on Tuesday.
The third-seeded Ivanovic, who won the event in 2008 and 2010, served five aces and broke Wickmayer, the 2009 winner, five times.
Ivanovic next plays another former French Open champion, Francesca Schiavone of Italy.
Stephens dropped her first two service games, but the 12th-ranked American broke Rybarikova three times to take the opening set.
Stephens, who had lost her only previous match against Rybarikova, held serve throughout the second set for a convincing victory.
The American will next face Andrea Petkovic. The German led 5-2 in the second set against Yvonne Meusburger of Austria, but was broken twice while serving for the match before wrapping up a 6-3, 7-5 victory.
Earlier, Camila Giorgi of Italy upset last year’s finalist Julia Goerges of Germany 6-2, 6-3.
The 105th-ranked Giorgi, who won three qualifying matches to reach the main draw, avoided break points and converted the second match point on her serve.
In the second round, Giorgi faces fifth-seeded Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium, who rallied to beat 17-year-old Donna Vekic of Croatia 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.
Austria’s Patricia Mayr-Achleitner, who entered on a wild-card, came back from a set down to defeat sixth-seeded Sorana Cirstea of Romania 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Also, seeded players Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain and Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia reached the second round. No. 4 Suarez Navarro defeated Kristyna Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-3, and No. 7 Cibulkova came from behind to beat Annika Beck of Germany 3-6, 6-2, 6-1.
Cibulkova next plays Katarzyna Piter of Poland, who defeated Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
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