Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Max Mirnyi of Belarus overcame the home crowd as well as No. 10 seeds Jamie Murray of Britain and Casey Dellacqua of Australia to advance to the semi-finals of the mixed doubles at Wimbledon on Friday.
The No. 14 seeds converted three of four break-point chances to complete a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory on Court 12 at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in London in 1 hour, 21 minutes.
Scot Murray admitted the match felt different to the duo’s previous contest, which was played on Centre Court.
“When we started today’s match it was pretty empty, so it was a bit weird,” Murray told the WTA Web site. “It was a close match. We did well to come back because it was a bit flat at the start. I did not play a very good service game at the start of the third set, and then we were unlucky not to break serve because we lost four or five points that we could have won. The girls had some good reflex shots. We weren’t able to get it back.”
Chan and Mirnyi were due to face fifth seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada and France’s Kristina Mladenovic in the semi-finals yesterday, with the court still to be decided.
In the other quarter-final on Friday, Pakistan’s Aisam Qureshi finally got his wish to play on No. 1 Court. The 34-year-old from Lahore had always dreamed of playing on the hallowed turf having grown up watching his idols Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker on television.
“For me growing up in Pakistan, we only used to see the Wimbledon semi-finals and finals on television because there was no cable TV,” he told the tournament Web site. “In my city, we have 80 percent grass courts, so I grew up playing on grass and Wimbledon was my dream come true ... a few years back I was supposed to play on No. 1 Court, and then it rained and they changed the court. I was pretty bumped about it.”
The No. 16 seed and his Russian partner Vera Dushevina cruised to a 6-4, 6-3 victory over British duo Neal Skupsi and Naomi Broady and they were due to face 15th seeds Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia and Samantha Stosur of Australia — again on Court No. 1 — in the semi-finals yesterday.
“Zimonjic and Stosur are both Grand Slam winners. It’s not going to be easy, I need to be sharp, Vera played unbelievable today. I think if she keeps playing like that we’ll have a very good chance tomorrow, but I need to step my game up a little bit,” Qureshi said.
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