Caroline Wozniacki came back to defeat Timea Bacsinszky 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Monday in the first round at the Connecticut Open.
A four-time champion of the New Haven tournament, the fourth-seeded Wozniacki lost the first three games of the match against Bacsinszky, a qualifier. She battled back to even the set at 4-4. However, Bacsinszky got a break of serve in the next game and then closed out the set by scoring on a drop shot.
There were several long rallies in the final two sets before Wozniacki prevailed. It was 2-2 in the third set before Wozniacki won the final four games.
Eugenie Bouchard of Canada needed only 52 minutes to beat Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski 6-1, 6-1. The third-seeded Bouchard led 5-0 in each set against the unseeded Jovanovski.
In a late night match, No. 5 seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia lost 7-6 (7/2), 6-3 to Andrea Petkovic of Germany.
Seventh-seeded Sara Errani of Italy was eliminated by Garbine Muguruza of Spain 6-2, 3-6, 6-1. It was the third loss in the past four matches for Errani, who has been knocked out in the first round in two of her last three tournaments. Muguruza lost in straight sets to Errani at the 2012 US Open in their only other meeting.
Samantha Stosur of Australia earned a 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (10/8), 6-2 victory over Kurumi Nara of Japan.
Qualifier Shuai Pen of China beat Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine 6-4, 6-3, while Barbora Strycova Zahlavova of the Czech Republic defeated qualifier Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.
Unseeded Carla Suarez-Navarro of Spain withdrew from the tournament because of a gastrointestinal illness. She was replaced by lucky loser Caroline Garcia of France, who beat qualifier Irina Carmelia Begu of Romania 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/4).
Wild card entrant Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium beat qualifier Misaki Doi of Japan 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Unseeded Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia defeated qualifier Silvia Soler-Espinosa of Spain 6-4, 6-3.
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