Hsieh Su-wei and Flavia Pennetta lost their bid for a first women’s doubles title as a partnership after they were edged 4-6, 6-4, 10-5 by eighth-seeded Russian duo Alla Kudryavtseva and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in a tight quarter-final at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome yesterday.
The second-seeded Taiwanese-Italian duo got off to a flying start at the Foro Italico, breaking their opponents in the first game when Pavlyuchenkova double-faulted when attempting to save a break point.
Hsieh and Pennetta — who it was revealed last week is engaged to be married to fellow Italian tennis player Fabio Fognini — broke the Russians’ serve again in the seventh game to take a 5-2 lead, but their opponents broke straight back and then closed the gap to 5-4.
Hsieh and Pennetta then held their nerve in the 10th game to clinch the first set 6-4 on their first set point.
The second set opened with three breaks of serve, before Hsieh and Pennetta grabbed the advantage when they held serve in the fourth game to claim a 3-1 lead.
However, the Russians broke back in the eighth game to level the set at 4-4, held their serve and then broke again in the 10th to take the set 6-4.
The eighth seeds then took that momentum into the super tiebreak, racing to a 7-2 lead, before the second seeds won three straight games to get it back to 7-5, but it was too little, too late for the Taiwanese-Italian pairing as the Russians won the final three points to close out the victory in 1 hour, 23 minutes.
Hsieh and Pennetta will consider themselves unlucky not to advance after they saved seven of 11 break-point chances and converted four of five.
In the men’s singles on Thursday, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic fought back from a set down to pull out a 5-7, 6-2, 6-3 win over Brazilian qualifier Thomaz Bellucci and reach the quarter-finals.
He next faces fifth seed Kei Nishikori, who beat Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-4, 6-3.
Rafael Nadal became the first player to break John Isner’s serve in nearly a month and he did it twice in a 6-4, 6-4 win.
Meanwhile, Andy Murray and Serena Williams withdrew from the tournament. Murray cited fatigue following consecutive clay-court titles in Munich and Madrid, while Williams said she had a right-elbow injury.
Isner held serve in 84 consecutive games stretching back to his last meeting with Nadal on April 16 in the Monte Carlo Masters, when Nadal broke him in the third set and went on to win.
This time, Nadal broke to take a 3-2 lead in the first set with a forehand winner which landed on the line on his first break point. Then the Spaniard produced a whipping forehand return pass up the line off Isner’s second serve to go up 5-4 in the second, quickly closing it out from there.
Nadal next faces eighth seed Stanislas Wawrinka, who beat Dominic Thiem of Austria 7-6 (7/3), 6-4.
Roger Federer closed out a 6-3, 7-5 win over big-serving South African Kevin Anderson.
He next face sixth seed Tomas Berdych, who overcame a strong challenge and a partisan crowd for a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7/2) win over Fognini, the last remaining Italian.
Also through was seventh seed David Ferrer, who defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-1, 6-3.
In the women’s singles, second seed Simona Halep routed 1999 Rome champion Venus Williams 6-2, 6-1; two-time champion Maria Sharapova eliminated Serbian qualifier Bojana Jovanovski 6-3, 6-3; and Carla Suarez Navarro defeated Eugenie Bouchard 6-7 (2/7), 7-5, 7-6 (9/7).
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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