World No. 5 Agnieszka Radwanska got her new season off to a fine start with a straight-sets win over Flavia Pennetta as Poland beat Italy at the mixed teams Hopman Cup yesterday.
After Radwanska edged past the 31st-ranked Pennetta, the Poles clinched the tie in unlikely circumstances, when the 288th-ranked Grzegorz Panfil was handed victory over Andreas Seppi in the men’s singles after the Italian retired due to illness.
That gave Poland, nominally the tournament’s top seeds, but outsiders for the tie after Janowicz’s withdrawal, an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the Group A encounter.
They were also handed the mixed doubles in a walkover for a 3-0 win in the first tie of the tournament.
Radwanska only arrived in Perth the night before her match against Pennetta, but looked in good touch in cruising to a 6-2, 6-2 win against the Italian, who has been ranked as high as 10th in the world.
The match was closer than the scoreline suggested, with the Italian creating six break points to Radwanska’s four. While the Pole claimed all of hers, Pennetta was unable to convert any as she was punished by her own errors.
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
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