Reigning champion Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at the French Open on Monday.
Taiwan’s Hsieh and Flavia Pennetta of Italy defeated Janette Husarova of Slovakia and Paula Kania of Poland 6-3, 7-5 on Court Three at Roland Garros in the third round in Paris.
World No. 10 Hsieh, who won the French Open women’s doubles title last year with Peng Shuai of China, and world No. 12 Pennetta, who is also a Grand Slam champion, having won the Australian Open in 2011 with Gisela Dulko of Argentina, saved four of eight break-point chances and converted seven of 14 in the straight-sets victory.
The fourth seeds won 77 of the 140 points contested to set up a quarter-final against ninth-seeded Czech duo Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, who knocked out Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 on Sunday.
Should Hsieh and Pennetta advance to the semi-finals, they could find themselves up against their former partners, Sania Mirza of India and Martina Hingis of Switzerland, the top seeds at Roland Garros this year.
In the final match on Court Three on Monday, Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan and John Peers of Australia were beaten in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles 6-4, 6-4 by Zheng Jie of China and Henri Kontinen of Finland.
After facing her younger sister Hao-ching in the opening round of the mixed doubles, Chan Yung-jan was ousted by her women’s doubles partner Zheng in the quarter-finals, with the Chinese-Finnish duo saving two of three break-point chances and converting three of seven to advance to the semi-finals.
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