Venus Williams yesterday took just an hour to secure her place in the semi-finals of the Hong Kong Tennis Open in a 6-1, 6-1 victory against a lackluster Alize Cornet.
The French player, who beat Williams’ sister Serena in their last three meets, struggled to gain a foothold in a match dominated by the seven-time Grand Slam winner.
Williams, 35, unleashed power serves and even gained resigned applause from her opponent, 10 years her junior, after whipping over a cross-court return to go 5-1 up in the second.
“It’s never easy. We had some tough games there,” Williams said, as she hopes to claw her way into the eight-player WTA Finals in Singapore later this month.
She is currently 11th in the Road to Singapore rankings after a resurgent season and Hong Kong is her last chance to get the points she needs.
Williams is to face former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic, who defeated sixth-seeded Daria Gavrilova 6-1, 6-1 in the evening’s last match.
World No. 10 Angelique Kerber, the top seed left in the tournament, took two hours to edge out France’s Caroline Garcia 7-5, 6-3 with fast returns and deft touches at the net in a match that saw a succession of long deuce wrangles.
Fifth-seeded Samantha Stosur was given a scare by Britain’s Heather Watson, who took the first set and went 3-1 up in the second in their quarter-final match, before the Australian turned on the power and took it 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.
Stosur meets Kerber in the semi-finals today.
In the doubles, Taiwanese duo Chan Chin-wei and Lee Ya-hsuan pulled out of their quarter-final, handing a walkover to the Chinese third seeds Liang Chen and Wang Yafan.
TIANJIN OPEN
World No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland yesterday defeated Russia’s Elizaveta Kulichkova at the Tianjin Open to set up a semi-final clash with Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.
Second-seeded Radwanska won 7-6 (7/3), 6-2 in an hour and a half, while third-seeded Pliskova beat Hungary’s Timea Babos 6-3, 6-2.
However, fifth-seeded Kristina Mladenovic of France was knocked out by Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
The winner of the Radwanska-Pliskova match is to play either Jovanovski or Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, both of whom are unseeded.
The US$500,000 WTA tournament has seen a run of upsets, the most spectacular of which was when Italian top seed Flavia Pennetta, who won the US Open last month, was dismissed by a player ranked more than 400 places below her, Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok.
GENERALI LADIES LINZ
Caroline Wozniacki on Thursday became the latest seeded player to suffer an early exit at the Generali Ladies Linz, losing to Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens 6-4, 6-4 in the second round.
Wozniacki’s defeat left the Austrian indoor event without any of its top-six seeded women in the quarter-finals.
Wozniacki, who was seeded second and is ranked No. 11 in the world, struggled to find rhythm against Flipkens, who played more aggressively and alternated strong forehands with drop shot backhands.
Flipkens next takes on Denisa Allertova, who defeated fellow Czech player Barbora Strycova 7-6 (7/0), 5-7, 6-4 in two hours, 46 minutes.
Allertova, who reached the final in Guangzhou last month, broke the eighth-seeded Strycova’s serve six times in total, but missed 15 more break points.
Seventh-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova became the highest-ranked player left after defeating Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland 6-4, 6-0.
The 29th-ranked Russian was broken when serving for the first set at 5-2 before taking seven straight games to close out the win.
In her sixth semi-final of the season, Pavlyuchenkova is to play 99th-ranked Serbian qualifier Aleksandra Krunic, who beat Mona Barthel of Germany 7-6 (8/6), 6-3.
Also, Johanna Larsson of Sweden advanced to the quarter-finals by defeating Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium 6-4, 7-6 (7/2).
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB