Top seed Serena Williams came from a set down to book her place in the Stanford Classic semi-finals with a hard-earned 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 win against fifth-seeded Serb Ana Ivanovic in Stanford, California, on Friday.
Serena, whose sister Venus was beaten in three sets by Germany’s Andrea Petkovic earlier in the day, initially struggled on a fast playing surface, but gradually found her range to seal victory in just under two hours.
“It wasn’t very easy,” said Serena, who was to face Petkovic in the last four yesterday. “Ana plays very well. This surface was a little fast, so she was hitting a lot of shots.”
Photo: AFP
“But I just fought it and stayed in there. I just tried to do everything that I worked on,” she said.
Serena was broken in the first game of the match, then double-faulted to lose serve again in the fifth, trailing 1-4 before losing the opening set in just under 30 minutes.
However, the American used her crunching ground strokes to great effect in the next two sets and, helped by 10 aces, she wrapped up the win when her opponent sent a forehand service return wide.
Earlier, the eighth-seeded Petkovic battled past Venus Williams 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 in a pulsating match lasting nearly two hours.
Former world No. 1 Venus, who had upset fourth seed Victoria Azarenka in straight sets in the previous round, fought back from 6-1 and 2-0 down to level the match, but the German regained control in the decisive third set.
“She played really well, and I wasn’t as on today as in previous days,” Venus said. “I came close, but she was just too good. She’s been having a great year and she managed to play those last few games just a little bit better.”
In the other two quarter-finals, third-seeded German Angelique Kerber swept aside Spaniard Garbine Muguruza Blanco 6-2, 6-1 while Varvara Lepchenko crushed fellow American Sachia Vickery 6-1, 6-0.
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