Taiwan’s Chan Chin-wei and Liang Chen of China were outclassed by second seeds Caroline Garcia of France and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia in the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, on Thursday.
The cross-strait duo fell to a 6-1, 6-0 defeat in just 43 minutes, creating no break-point opportunities and saving just three of the nine they faced, with their opponents winning 51 of 72 points played in the crushing victory.
Kaohsiung native Chan, a gold medalist at last year’s Asian Games in the women’s team competition and a frequent doubles champion on the ITF Tour, has just one previous WTA Tour doubles title, a 7-5, 6-3 victory with Chinese partner Xu Yifan over US pairing Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears in Seoul in 2013.
Photo: EPA
In the singles, three-time defending champion Maria Sharapova lost her opening clay-court match of the season, going down 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 to Germany’s Angelique Kerber.
The defeat was Sharapova’s first at the venue after sweeping to the title in 2012, 2013 and last year on the back of 13 successive victories.
It also means the French Open champion is set to lose her world No. 2 ranking to Simona Halep of Romania next week.
The defeat for 28-year-old Sharapova ended a seven-year streak of 64 successive wins on clay after securing the first set.
Kerber, the world No. 14, was due to face Sharapova’s compatriot Ekaterina Makarova in the quarter-finals yesterday.
Sharapova, who skipped Russia’s Fed Cup semi-final win over Germany with a leg injury last weekend, was on course for a comfortable win at one stage, leading by a set and 5-4, but left-handed Kerber won three games in a row to sneak the second set 7-5, before eventually taking the victory after 2 hours, 27 minutes.
Sharapova finished with 44 winners to 40 unforced errors, while Kerber was 22-20.
“We both played very well; high-level tennis,” Kerber said. “It felt amazing out there. The crowd was so supportive of both of us. I was a little bit tired in the second set, but when I heard the crowd, I was fighting until the last point.”
World No. 4 Petra Kvitova also suffered a shock defeat, beaten in straight sets by unseeded Madison Brengle of the US.
Brengle, 25, ran out a 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) winner as Kvitova failed to make it past the second round in her first tournament since February.
Brengle broke the reigning Wimbledon champion’s serve seven times to clinch victory in just over 90 minutes.
Kvitova, who took a six-week break to recover from exhaustion, resumed training three weeks ago and won both her Fed Cup semi-final singles rubbers as the Czech Republic beat France 3-1 last weekend.
The unseeded American, who reached the last 16 at the Australian Open, was due to face France’s Garcia, who defeated Carina Witthoeft of Germany 7-6 (7/4), 6-2.
“I think that Madison played a solid match. She didn’t miss much and it was really difficult for me because when I had the opportunity for winners, I missed,” said Kvitova, who hit 39 unforced errors and the same number of winners. “The confidence wasn’t really high then and I didn’t feel physically there as well. I mean, I was still tired probably from the Fed Cup and on the clay you need to be physically ready for it. So that was one of the reasons as well. I need to be still patient and I’m looking forward to next week, which I’m going to use to practice on clay.”
Fourth seed Caroline Wozniacki defeated Czech veteran Lucie Safarova 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 in her first outing on clay this year.
The Dane won just one clay-court match last year, but with the French Open fast approaching she has enlisted the help of three-time Roland Garros champion Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario as part of her coaching team this season.
Wozniacki was yesterday due to face eighth seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, who defeated Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 6-4, 7-6 (7/1).
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