Seventh seeds Hsieh Su-wei and Flavia Pennetta had to dig themselves out of a hole to reach the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at Wimbledon on Monday.
After losing the first set of their third-round match against Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Coco Vandeweghe of the US, the Taiwanese-American duo bounced back to take the second to love and level the match.
However, the seventh seeds then found themselves 1-4, love-30 down in the decider, before digging deep to fight back and complete a 3-6, 6-0, 9-7 victory in 1 hour, 40 minutes on Court 8 at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in southwest London.
Photo: AP
Hsieh and Pennetta saved four of 10 break points and converted eight of 14, winning 99 of the 183 points contested to set up a quarter-final today against fourth seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France.
The winners of that quarter-final face either Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Lisa Raymond of the US or second-seeded Russian duo Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in the semi-finals.
In the other half of the draw, top seeds Martina Hingis of Switzerland and Sania Mirza of India take on ninth seeds Casey Dellacqua of Australia and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan and third seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US and Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic face fifth-seeded US pairing Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears.
In women’s singles, Maria Sharapova downed Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-4 to proceed to the quarter-finals. Sharapova has not dropped a set so far, losing only 23 games in four matches.
Victoria Azarenka downed Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-3 to set up a Wimbledon quarter-final clash with old rival Serena Williams on Monday.
Caroline Wozniacki, the Danish fifth seed, blew her chance to make the Wimbledon quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat to Garbine Muguruza in the last 16.
Muguruza made 33 unforced errors to Wozniacki’s 16, but crucially hit 29 winners to Wozniacki’s 10.
It is the third time the Spanish No. 2 has reached a Grand Slam quarter-final, having made the last eight at the French Open last year and this year.
She will face Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky for a place in the semi-finals.
Roger Federer and Andy Murray reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Monday while controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios was under fire for “tanking” in his last-16 exit.
Seven-time champion Federer reached his 13th All England Club quarter-final with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 win over Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.
The Swiss star claimed victory on a sixth match point against Bautista Agut, whose challenge was seriously compromised by needing treatment on his right ankle after a bad fall in the sixth game of the second set.
British third seed Murray claimed a 7-6 (9/7), 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 win over 2.11m tall Ivo Karlovic to book his place in the quarter-finals for the eighth successive year.
Karlovic, at 36 the oldest man to reach the last-16 in 39 years, fired 29 aces in the three-hour Centre Court encounter, but that was well below par for a man who had blasted 136 in his first three rounds.
French 21st seed Richard Gasquet defeated Kyrgios 7-5, 6-1, 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (8/6) in a controversial clash to avenge a second round loss last year to the temperamental Australian.
French Open champion Wawrinka defeated Belgian 16th seed David Goffin 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (9/7), 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals for the second successive year.
Wawrinka is bidding to become just the fifth man to win at both Roland Garros and the All England in the same year.
Pospisil became only the third Canadian man to reach the quarter-finals with a 4-6, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 win over Serbian 22nd seed Viktor Troicki.
It was the world No. 56’s third five-set match in four rounds and his first career comeback from two sets to love down.
Simon reached the quarter-finals for the first time with a 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Czech sixth seed and 2010 runner-up Tomas Berdych.
US Open champion Marin Cilic made the quarter-finals for the second successive year with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over unseeded Denis Kudla of the US.
The victory on Monday was Cilic’s 26th in a row against US opponents.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic survived a barrage from big-hitting Kevin Anderson to reach his seventh successive Wimbledon quarter-final yesterday.
The top seed came from behind to win 6-7 (6/8), 6-7 (6/8), 6-1, 6-4, 7-5 in a last-16 tie suspended due to bad light on Monday at the end of the fourth set.
The Serb, who has now reached 25 Grand Slam quarter-finals in a row, goes on to face Croatia’s US Open champion Marin Cilic for a place in the semi-finals.
Anderson, the South African 14th seed, fired 40 aces and 71 winners, but committed 41 unforced errors.
Djokovic crashed 43 winners past his opponent but hit just 19 unforced errors.
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James Harden on Friday scored 31 points and came up big in overtime to help the Los Angeles Clippers erase a double-digit deficit on the way to a 121-117 NBA victory over the Toronto Raptors. Harden scored 16 points in the fourth quarter and overtime as the Clippers pushed their wining steak to five games despite the absence of star Kawhi Leonard with a sprained right ankle. The Clippers trailed by 11 entering the fourth quarter, but Harden drilled a pair of free-throws with 1:24 left in regulation to tie it and after misses from both teams, they went to
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