Taiwan Beer kept their title hopes alive with an 82-67 victory over the Taiwan Mobile Cloud Leopards in Game 6 of the semi-finals at the Sinjhuang Sports Complex in New Taipei City last night to force a decisive Game 7.
With their backs against the wall, the Brew Crew showed tremendous resilience by overcoming a sluggish start with an outstanding second quarter to grab the lead for good.
Poor perimeter shooting coupled with a pair of three’s by the Leopard offense set Taiwan Beer back 15-8 after one quarter of play.
However, the two-time champs managed to shake off the dismal start by erupting for 26 points in an electrifying second that saw them hold the Leopards scoreless for more than five minutes of play to claim a 34-31 lead at the half.
Lee Chun-wei and Lu Chi-min’s 17 combined points in the first half more than made up for a subpar performance by big man Patrick O’Bryant who only had four points to his credit, well below his season average of 10 points in any given half.
Taiwan Mobile kept the game close without ever taking the lead in a hard fought third with Chang Rong-hsuan scoring eight to counter Taiwan Beer’s Su Yi-cheh’s team-high nine points in the quarter.
That was the extent the Leopards were in the game as both of their top scoring threats, Luke Nevill and Wu Yung-ren, were in foul trouble in the decisive fourth.
That paved the way for the Brew Crew, who capitalized on the situation with a late-game surge by O’Bryant to put the game away long before the final buzzer.
TOMORROW’S GAME 7
The two teams will have today off to rest their wearied bodies and souls before taking the floor in Sinjhuang for the decisive Game 7 tomorrow evening. Tip-off is scheduled for 8pm.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with