TENNIS
Tsonga advances to quarters
Top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga served 10 aces and saved all five break points to defeat Gilles Muller of Luxembourg 7-6 (9/7), 6-4 at the Moselle Open on Wednesday. Tsonga won the title in Metz in 2011 and 2012. He is to face eighth-seeded David Goffin of Belgium or German Tobias Kamke in the quarter-finals of the indoor tournament. Tsonga can still qualify for the ATP finals in London from Nov. 9. Goffin beat French qualifier Florent Serra 6-2, 6-2, while Finnish veteran Jarkko Nieminen set up a meeting with Jerzy Janowicz after beating Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-1, 6-4. Local favorite Paul-Henri Mathieu joined Tsonga in the quarter-finals as he defeated fourth-seeded Czech Lukas Rosol 6-3, 6-4. Joao Sousa saved all four break points to beat Ivan Dodig 6-2, 6-2 in the first round, while Jeremy Chardy got the better of Nicolas Mahut 7-6 (7/5), 7-5.
TENNIS
Li Na set to retire
China’s two-time Grand Slam winner Li Na is poised to retire, state media reported yesterday, in a move which would bring down the curtains on Asia’s most successful tennis career. CCTV-5, sports channel of state broadcaster China Central Television, quoted unnamed insiders as saying Li, 32, will announce her retirement because of injuries today. “According to insiders, Li Na will officially announce her retirement on September 19,” CCTV-5 said on its verified microblog. “She is reportedly retiring because she is unable to continue competing due to her physical condition,” it said. An employee at the Beijing office of Li’s agency, IMG, said that Li’s manager was in a meeting and unable to confirm. CCTV-5’s report comes after web portal SINA Sports, also quoting unnamed sources, said IMG would hold a briefing today to announce Li’s retirement. The world No. 6 won the Australian Open in January, but her season has been troubled by injury. Li became one of the region’s biggest stars when she won the 2011 French Open, becoming the first Asian national to win a Grand Slam singles title.
SOCCER
Name-changer banned
Democratic Republic of the Congo-born player Etekiama Agiti Tady was handed a two-year ban on Wednesday after playing for Rwanda under a different name. A Confederation of African Football (CAF) statement said the suspension was decided at an Africa Cup of Nations committee meeting in Addis Ababa. The striker from Kinshasa club Vita became Dady Simeon Birori when appearing for his adopted country. Rwanda were disqualified last month from the Cup of Nations qualifiers when a team they defeated, Congo Brazzaville, complained to CAF about Tady.
SOCCER
VC on England kit gets flak
The Rugby Football Union has apologized for causing offence with its decision to use the Victoria Cross (VC) as part of England’s new kit. An image of the medal, which is the highest award for gallantry that armed forces from Britain and the Commonwealth can receive, is replicated on the new jerseys, which cost £90 (US$150) each. Charities including the Victoria Cross Trust had criticized the design as disrespectful and inappropriate. “We would like to apologize to those who may have taken offence with our new kit,” the union said in a statement on Wednesday. “We will be contacting the Victoria Cross Trust and the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association to see how we can also support their worthwhile work going forwards.”
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