Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai’s defense of their Wimbledon women’s doubles titled ended yesterday when they slumped to a 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 defeat to 14th seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France.
Taiwan’s Hsieh and China’s Peng, the top seeds at the All England Lawn Tennis Club and joint top of the WTA doubles rankings, created 11 break-point chances, but only converted three, while their 14th-seeded opponents converted four of five in 2 hours, 5 minutes on Court 3.
Babos, who partnered Hsieh at the Aegon International in Eastbourne, England, ahead of the London Grand Slam, and Mladenovic face 11th seeds Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia and Anastasia Rodionova of Australia in the quarter-finals after the latter pair beat seventh-seeded US duo Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 7-5, 6-4 yesterday.
Photo: EPA
There was better news in the third round of the mixed doubles as Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Max Mirnyi of Belarus, the 14th seeds, defeated Oksana Kalashnikova of Georgia and Chris Guccione of Australia 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) on Court 18.
Chan and Mirnyi converted two of six break-point chances as their opponents failed to convert any of five to be the first pairing to claim a spot in the mixed doubles quarter-finals in London.
In the men’s singles action on Tuesday, there was to be no escape for world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, who won four consecutive matches after losing the first: This time, he was engulfed by a player with dynamite in his racket’s strings and crashed out of the tournament.
Photo: AFP
How tournament organizers must be slapping themselves on the back for handing Australian upstart Nick Kyrgios the wild card that let the 19-year-old world No. 144 take his dream Wimbledon debut to dizzying new heights with a spellbinding display on Centre Court in which he twice outplayed the champion using a barrage of aces and crunching baseline winners.
His 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3 win was the first by a player ranked outside the top 100 over a world No. 1 at a Grand Slam since Jim Courier lost to Andrei Olhovsky in 1992.
Olhovsky never did much else, but Kyrgios’s victory, sealed with a 37th ace, felt as though it could be a seminal moment in the evolution of men’s tennis; a warning to the “big four.”
Photo: AFP
Yes, Lukas Rosol and Steve Darcis, also ranked outside the world’s top 100, ended Nadal’s previous two Wimbledon campaigns, but they played probably the matches of their careers to do it.
Kyrgios’s career is just beginning and the way he overwhelmed the Spaniard with a fearless brand of tennis, it is hard to predict where his first Wimbledon adventure will end up.
“He is acting to me like he can win the whole tournament,” three-time champion John McEnroe said after witnessing a match that will enter Wimbledon folklore. “The last guy that I saw like that was Boris Becker, a teenager who just believed that he would beat everything that was put in his way.”
While magnanimous in defeat, Nadal offered a few words of caution.
“It’s easier when you are arriving. Everything is new, nothing to lose. Everything is good. We’ll see if he’s able to improve and play at a very high level for a long period of time, but I wish him all the best,” the Spaniard said.
Nadal won the French Open aged 19 and has gone on to capture 13 more Grand Slam titles.
The Australian on Tuesday described himself as “just a normal 19-year-old kid” and said that some pre-match comments from his mother, Norlaila, that Nadal was a match too far for him had fired him up for the biggest day of his life.
“I was actually reading a comment that she thought Rafa was too good for me,” he said. “It actually made me a bit angry. I’ll just text her a smiley face.”
Kyrgios’ exploits topped what had already been a dramatic eighth day of the championships, including a defeat for Maria Sharapova and the sight of distressed world No. 1 Serena Williams serving a game of double faults in a third-round doubles match with sister, Venus Williams, before retiring with an illness.
In the women’s singles draw, Simona Halep of Romania and Canadian Eugenie Bouchard set up a meeting to fight for a place in the finals after winning their respective quarter-final matches in straight sets yesterday.
The third-seeded Romanian came from 4-1 down in the first set to claim 11 games in a row and beat last year’s finalist Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-4, 6-0 in 57 minutes on Centre Court.
The 13th-seeded Bouchard defeated No. 9 Angelique Kerber 6-3, 6-4 to reach her third consecutive semi-finals at a Grand Slam, ending the German’s run after she had dispatched Russia’s Sharapova.
The 20-year-old Bouchard faced four break points while serving at three-all in the first set and saved them all in a nearly 10-minute game.
Halep, runner-up at the French Open, and Bouchard are both 15-2 in Grand Slam matches this year.
The other semi-finals clash will see 2011 champion Petra Kvitova take on Lucie Safarova.
Czech players dominated the bottom half of the women’s draw where Safarova’s 6-3, 6-1 defeat of Russian Ekaterina Makarova set up the date with compatriot Kvitova, who defeated unseeded Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-1, 7-5.
With a Czech finalist guaranteed, the top half of the draw took a further twist when despite saving six match points, firebrand Sharapova on Tuesday had her hopes of celebrating the 10th anniversary of her sole Wimbledon triumph with a sequel rudely ended by a dogged Kerber.
The screaming fifth seed threw everything in her formidable arsenal Kerber’s way, but after recovering from a wasteful opening set tiebreak to level, she went down 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-4.
Though not the victory the French Open champion craved, she showed true champions’ spirit to haul back a 5-2 deficit in a thrilling finale to a match she might have gone on to win had she taken a point to level at 5-5.
Instead, despite blowing a 0-40 advantage in the final nerve-jangling game Kerber sealed victory when Sharapova flailed a backhand over the baseline, but would ultimately follow the Russian after meeting with Bouchard yesterday.
Adding to his compatriot’s success on Tuesday was Milos Raonic, who underlined the country’s upward curve with a four-set victory over Japan’s 10th seed Kei Nishikori 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (4), 6-3 to become the first Canadian man to reach a Wimbledon quarter-final in the professional era.
Raonic’s feat came a day after Bouchard became the first player from the North American country to reach that stage at the All England lawn and Tennis Club.
Not a bad way to celebrate Canada Day, although Raonic will not be partying too much with Kyrgios to take on next.
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The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
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HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite