TENNIS
Cibulkova beats Pironkova
Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova overcame the heat and a three-hour match with Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova on Sunday in the first round of the Connecticut Open. The 26-year-old Cibulkova won 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (7/5), 6-3 as she continues her comeback from left Achilles surgery that sidelined her for more than four months this year. “The sun wasn’t so strong, but it was really, really humid,” Cibulkova said. “I was sweating a lot, and in the end I was cramping a lot. I could feel it in my body I was getting really tired, but I knew I had to stay strong. I said to myself: ‘OK, I’m here for three hours now, I’m not going to give it up.’” The tournament lost its top seed when Simona Halep withdrew because of a left thigh injury after losing to Serena Williams in the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati earlier in the day. Halep was replaced in the draw by lucky loser Lesia Tsurenko. In women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung and China’s Liang Chen defeated Spain’s Lara Arruabarrena and Slovakia’s Andreja Klepac 6-3, 6-2 in their first-round match. In other matches at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center, Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu beat Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas 7-5, 5-7, 6-2 and the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova topped Italy’s Camila Giorgi 6-2, 7-5.
TENNIS
Groth defeats Donaldson
Australia’s Sam Groth beat the US’ Jared Donaldson on Sunday night in the first round of the Winston-Salem Open. Groth won 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (10/8), 7-6 (7/5) to advance to face 13th-seeded Steve Johnson of the US in the second round. South Korea’s Chung Hyeon also advanced, beating Britain’s James Ward 6-7 (7/9), 6-4, 6-3. Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun beat Robin Haase of the Netherlands 7-6 (7/4), 6-2; Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman topped Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-4, 7-6 (10/8); and Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo advanced when Belgium’s Steve Darcis retired.
CYCLING
Greipel wins Cyclassics
German sprinter Andre Greipel, who won four stages on this year’s Tour de France, survived a fall after just 10km to win the Vattenfall Cyclassics race in Hamburg, Germany, on Sunday. The 33-year-old Lotto Soudal rider, who was born in Rostock, northern Germany, relished his first victory in Hamburg to win in 4 hours, 57.05 minutes, ahead of Norway’s Alexander Kristoff and Italy’s Giacomo Nizzolo in a blanket finish. A crash ended the hopes of Britain’s Mark Cavendish, who had been amongst the prerace favorites.
FORMULA ONE
Pirelli shifts blowout blame
Sebastian Vettel’s explosive Belgian Grand Prix blowout would not have happened if tire manufacturer Pirelli had been listened to two years ago, the Italian company said in a statement on Sunday. Pirelli said they had asked in 2013, after a spate of blowouts at the British Grand Prix forced a change in construction, for a maximum to be set for the number of laps that could be run with the same tires. “This request was not accepted. The proposal put forward a maximum distance equivalent to 50 percent of the grand prix distance for the prime tire and 30 percent for the option. These conditions, if applied today at Spa, would have limited the maximum number of laps on the medium compound to 22,” Pirelli said. Ferrari’s Vettel, who was running in third place, had completed 27 laps on the medium tire and was on a one-stop strategy when his car’s right rear blew on the penultimate lap of the race.
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