World No. 3 and defending champion Roger Federer suffered a surprise defeat in the second round of the Shangahi Masters yesterday, losing 7-6 (7/4), 2-6, 6-3 to Spain’s 70th-ranked Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
US Open runner-up Federer, 34, banged down 15 aces and won more points than his opponent, but a lack of sharpness at crucial moments sent him spinning to defeat.
Ramos-Vinolas is to face Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who beat Victor Estrella Burgos 6-3, 6-2.
In other second-round action, ninth seed Milos Raonic, one of several players hovering around the cut-off mark for the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London, came through against Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci in two tiebreaks.
South Africa’s Kevin Anderson, seeded 12th, beat German veteran Tommy Haas in straight sets.
TIANJIN OPEN
AP, TIANJIN, China
US Open champion Flavia Pennetta lost in the first round of the Tianjin Open yesterday, hurting her chances of qualifying for the WTA Finals in Singapore.
The top-seeded Italian lost to No. 414-ranked qualifier Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine 6-3, 7-5.
Pennetta is currently in the eighth and final spot to qualify for the WTA Finals, but only has a 20-point lead over Timea Bacsinszky, with several other players behind her still in contention.
Second-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska and third-seeded Karolina Pliskova advanced to the second round. Radwanska beat Olga Savchuk 6-1, 6-0, while Pliskova defeated Kristina Kucova 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.
Both women are also still in the hunt for spots in the WTA Finals field.
Duan Yingying, Bojana Jovanovski, Timea Babos, Danka Kovinic and Urszula Radwanska also won their opening matches.
HONG KONG OPEN
AFP, HONG KONG
Seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams battled through a grueling first-round match at the Hong Kong Open yesterday, taking three sets to beat unseeded Yuliya Beygelzimer.
The American finally sealed victory 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 after more than two hours on court.
Williams, 35, is fighting for a place in the eight-player WTA Finals in Singapore later this month, with Hong Kong her last chance to get the points she needs.
Former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic also struggled to find her rhythm against Romanian qualifier Ana Bogdan, but went on to seal a 6-4, 6-2 win.
Australia’s Samantha Stosur and Caroline Garcia of France also went through to the second round, as did Britain’s Heather Watson.
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