Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei may be a wily veteran with a deep bag of tricks, but her unusual array of two-handed shots and changes of pace were little match for the power of world No. 1 Serena Williams at the first Grand Slam event of the year yesterday.
Hsieh, the only Taiwanese player in either the men’s or women’s singles draw at the Australian Open this year, lost her second round singles match to Williams 6-1, 6-2 in exactly an hour.
Williams hit 26 winners to just nine for Hsieh and won 85 percent of the points when she got her first serve in, compared to only 39 percent for Hsieh.
Photo: EPA
The Taiwanese veteran, who turned 30 on Jan. 4, is known for playing wide-angled shots at different speeds and keeping opponents on the move, but she was not precise enough when she had opportunities to put Williams under pressure.
“She’s definitely a tricky opponent and I think it was a good matchup for me to play someone like that who can hit any shot at anytime anywhere on the court. I kind of needed that,” Williams said of her opponent.
Hsieh, currently ranked 90th in the world in singles, set up the encounter against the world’s top women’s singles player with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory in the first round over Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia on Monday.
Photo: EPA
On the men’s side, Taiwanese stalwart Lu Yen-hsun had his streak of 30 consecutive Grand Slam singles appearances broken at the Australian Open this year when he was forced to pull out with an elbow injury.
According to his official Web site, he was scheduled to undergo an operation in Melbourne to have bone chips in his elbow removed, and he hopes to return to the court in May with an eye to playing in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August.
It was also a forgettable day for Taiwanese players in the doubles.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung and Olga Govortsova of Belarus were ousted 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 by 13th seeds Julia Goerges of Germany and Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in 1 hour, 37 minutes on Court 19.
In the following match on the same court, Taiwanese duo Hsieh Cheng-peng and Yang Tsung-hua fell to a 6-1, 7-5 defeat to Daniel Nestor of Canada and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic in two minutes short of an hour in the men’s doubles.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic had a third-set tussle with French teenager Quentin Halys before winning their night match 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (7/3), joining Williams and Roger Federer in the next stage.
Federer, who is trying to extend his record number of Grand Slam crowns to 18, dismantled his 35th-ranked practice partner Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-3, 7-5, 6-1.
The all-time Grand Slam king came unstuck in the third round last year, when he was shocked by Andreas Seppi, and he is wary of another upset with Grigor “Baby Fed” Dimitrov up next.
“It’s the least I expect to be in the third round of a Slam, obviously, so I’m pumped up, playing well, feeling good,” Federer said. “But there’s always a danger, you know. Like last year, the third round was the end for me, so I hope to go further this time.”
Separately, a senior anti-corruption official told reporters that match-fixing was commonplace in tennis’ lower levels and criticized the “opaque and secretive” Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), which is tasked with finding cheats.
Chris Eaton, director of integrity at the International Centre for Sport Security in Doha, was speaking after a report said several players suspected of being serial match-fixers had never been punished.
“Integrity is by definition open and transparent. The TIU is neither... By operating in the shadows, they fail to practice what they preach,” he said, calling for a “new independent and integrated integrity model.”
Petra Kvitova became the latest women’s top-10 player to fall, joining Simona Halep and Venus Williams on the sidelines when she was shocked 6-4, 6-4 by Australian giant-killer Daria Gavrilova.
In a positive evening for the hosts, the combustible Nick Kyrgios overcame a mix-up with his shorts to beat Pablo Cuevas and set up a showdown with world number six Tomas Berdych.
Agnieszka Radwanska’s sky-high confidence took another leap upwards when she halted Eugenie Bouchard, back in form after suffering concussion at the US Open, 6-4, 6-2.
On court earlier was five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova, who had little difficulty dispatching 105th-ranked Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2, 6-1.
Japanese seventh seed Kei Nishikori beat his close friend Austin Krajicek 6-3, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 as he pressed his bid for a first Grand Slam title.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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