Hsieh Su-wei’s first match after reaching the top of the WTA Tour doubles rankings did not turn out as she would have wanted on Thursday as the Taiwanese star crashed out of the Internazionali d’Italia in Rome.
Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan knocked out top seeds and defending champions Hsieh and Peng Shuai of China in the second round at the Foro Italico.
Since being confirmed as joint world No. 1s last week, things have not exactly gone to plan for Hsieh and Peng, whose 6-4, 6-3 defeat to Medina Garrigues and Shvedova followed hot on the heels of a surprise exit in Madrid at the hands of Spanish wild-cards Carla Suarez Navarro and Garbine Muguruza.
After an early exchange of breaks, a run of three straight games saw Medina Garrigues and Shvedova take charge of the first set. They continued to dominate proceedings in the second, breaking serve three more times to run out surprisingly comfortable victors after 1 hour, 15 minutes.
Last year’s runners-up, Italian duo Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, continued their excellent start to the clay-court season with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Croatia’s Darija Jurak and Megan Moulton-Levy of the US.
It was the Italian pairing’s ninth straight win and it set up a rematch with their defeated opponents in last month’s final in Stuttgart — Zimbabwe’s Cara Black and Sania Mirza of India.
Elsewhere, there were wins for third-seeded Russian duo Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, who edged wild-card pairing Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Alisa Kleybanova of Russia 7-5, 6-4, while eighth-seeded German duo Julia Goerges and Anna-Lena Groenefeld saw off US pairing Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond 6-4, 6-4.
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was