BADMINTON
China’s Wang defeats Tai
China’s Wang Shixian overcame Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan 21-23, 21-12, 21-15 to reach her first All-England Open Badminton Championships final in two years. Wang had a 6-2 winning record over her opponent prior to their semi-final, but Tai sensed an upset when she produced a delightful backhand drop to take the opener. However, Wang rallied to create pivotal openings in the next two games before criticizing her performance, as well as the match officials’, following her 71-minute victory. “I’m really not happy with the performance, something went wrong with my tactics today,” Wang said. She went on to criticize the English umpire and line judge and, despite her opponent Tai heralding from Taiwan, Wang added that she “wished the umpires could be fair to the Asian players.” Wang will not have to face top-ranked Carolina Marin in the final, after the defending champion lost 11-21, 21-16, 21-14 to Nozomi Okuhara of Japan.
BOXING
Braehmer defends title
Juergen Braehmer on Saturday night defeated fellow German Eduard Gutknecht by unanimous decision for the second time to retain his WBA light heavyweight title. The judges awarded it 116-111, 116-111 and 118-110 in favor of the 37-year-old southpaw, who was clearly better in the earlier rounds and was then able to withstand a spirited rally from the challenger. “It was fine for the first six rounds, I was clearly in control, but then from the sixth or seventh I felt a pain in my left hand and, you know how it is, you don’t want to take any risks. The opponent senses that too,” said Braehmer, who had been landing the cleaner blows. Braehmer had a cut above his left eye in the ninth round from a clash of heads. The blood encouraged Gutknecht, who improved, but his punches were wild or delivered close in, and he had a point deducted in the 10th after a number of warnings. Braehmer improved to 48-2 (37 KOs) after making the sixth defense of the vacant title he won by defeating Marcus Oliveira in December 2013.
SOCCER
Pearce plays for Longford
Former England captain Stuart Pearce on Saturday came out of retirement at the age of 53 to help out a non-league team dubbed “the worst in Britain.” Leftback Pearce came on as a second-half substitute for Longford AFC, who went into Saturday’s match having lost 22 out of 22 league games, with a goal difference of minus-190. The beleaguered club brought in Pearce in a bid to boost morale and help turn the tide. Performances have improved since Pearce’s signing was announced in January, but the defeats kept coming. Despite the England legend’s appearance for Longford in the Gloucestershire Northern Senior League Division Two, the 13th tier of English soccer, they still lost 1-0 to visitors Wotton Rovers, thanks to a penalty.
SOCCER
Van der Sar saves first club
Former Netherlands and Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar on Saturday came out of retirement to play for his first club, VV Noordwijk, marking the occasion by saving a penalty. The amateur club were left without a goalkeeper after a spate of injuries and 45-year-old Van der Sar agreed to step in for a one-off game, almost five years since he last played professional soccer. On Saturday, Van der Sar starred in a 1-1 draw against CVV de Jodan Boys by diving to his left to save a penalty, a moment captured by a fan behind the goal who posted the footage online.
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