Chuang Chia-jung advanced to the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo yesterday, but fellow Taiwanese Chan Chin-wei crashed out of the first round.
Chuang and Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine defeated Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Alicja Rosolska of Poland 6-2, 7-6 (8/6) in 1 hour, 20 minutes in their first-round clash at the Ariake Coliseum in the Japanese capital.
The Ukrainian-Taiwanese duo saved four of eight break points and converted six of 14, winning 65 of the 129 points contested to set up a quarter-final against Japanese wild-cards Misaki Doi and Kurumi Nara, who stunned top-seeded American pairing Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears in their first-round match.
Photo: AFP
Today’s quarter-final is a chance for Chuang to avenge her semi-final defeat at the hands of the Japanese duo at the Japan Open in Tokyo last week.
Chan and Darija Jurak of Croatia fell to a 7-5, 6-4 defeat to Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic in 1 hour, 27 minutes.
The east European pairing face third-seeded Spanish duo Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro on Court 1 today, after second-seeded Taiwanese sisters Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan take on Olga Savchuk of Ukraine and Xu Yifan of China in their quarter-final.
In the singles yesterday, Muguruza of Spain beat Strycova 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the quarter-finals of the Pan Pacific Open.
The third-seeded Muguruza saved 11 of 14 break points to dispatch of Strycova in 1 hour, 45 minutes at Ariake Coliseum and set up a quarter-final with eighth-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.
Bencic rallied to beat Samantha Stosur 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-4.
It was Bencic’s first win against the Australian veteran who lost despite hitting 13 aces.
Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, who received a first-round bye, beat Croatian qualifier Ana Konjuh 6-2, 6-2.
KOREA OPEN
AFP, SEOUL
Slovakian second seed Anna Karolina Schmiedlova yesterday advanced to the quarter-final of the WTA Korea Open after a tough bout with Christina McHale of the US.
Schmiedlova, ranked 31st in the world, needed three sets to oust McHale 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck, seeded eighth, took a tiebreaker to win the third set against Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7/3).
Swedish veteran Johanna Larsson, ranked 62nd in the world, booked her place in the quarter-final with an upset victory over German seventh seed Julia Goerges 7-5, 6-4.
German fifth seed Mona Barthel crushed Mariana Duque of Colombia 6-2, 6-1.
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