Hsieh Su-wei and Oksana Kalashnikova fell to big guns Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza in the second round of the women’s doubles at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome on Wednesday, while Roger Federer put in an encouraging performance in the second round of the men’s singles considering he only decided to play moments before stepping onto the court.
The Taiwanese-Georgian duo battled for 61 minutes against the Swiss-Indian pairing, but fell to a 6-3, 6-3 defeat at the Foro Italico in the Italian capital.
The top seeds saved two of the four break points they faced and converted five of 11, winning 59 of the 103 points contested to advance to the quarter-finals.
Photo: EPA
Hsieh’s defeat meant that Chan Yung-jan was the sole surviving Taiwanese in Rome. Chan and Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany, the sixth seeds, were due to take on Romanian duo Irina-Camelia Begu and Monica Niculescu in the second round of the doubles late yesterday.
In the men’s singles, Federer put his full array of shots on display in a 6-3, 7-5 win over Alexander Zverev.
“I was expecting to lose in straight sets today. That was the mindset going in, so to win in straights is actually a really big surprise to me,” said Federer, who has been having problems with his back. “I played cautious and I only decided after the warmup that I was actually going to play.”
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and seven-time Rome champion Rafael Nadal also advanced in straight sets on the red clay courts at the Foro Italico.
In the women’s singles, Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber, fourth seed Victoria Azarenka and Mutua Madrid Open winner Simona Halep each lost.
After withdrawing from Madrid with lower-back pain, Federer looked sharp from the start against world No. 44 Zverev, using his backhand-slice drop-shot especially well.
The 19-year-old Zverev, considered a potential future Grand Slam champion, often found himself running down shots wide in the alleys. At one point, the 1.98m German was pulled so far off the court he ended up in the lap of a line judge — then hugged the official after Federer put away an easy volley.
On the first point of the final game, Federer surprised Zverev by following his second serve to the net and Zverev lost his footing as he attempted to chase down Federer’s volley. Zverev fell to the clay, dirtying his shorts and shirt, and had to go over to his chair to dust himself off.
Federer was next due to meet 13th seed Dominic Thiem, who beat Joao Sousa of Portugal 6-3, 6-2, but he could not immediately confirm that he would play.
Djokovic beat 35-year-old French qualifier Stephane Robert 7-5, 7-5 as he seeks a third straight title in Rome and fourth overall.
Murray never dropped his serve, hitting seven aces, as he eliminated Kazakh qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3, 6-3.
Nadal defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-3 and was next due to meet rising Australian Nick Kyrgios, who beat big-serving Milos Raonic 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 on the statue-lined Pietrangeli Court.
Eugenie Bouchard, the 2014 Wimbledon runner-up, beat second seed Kerber 6-1, 5-7, 7-5; Romanian Begu, ranked 35th, defeated Azarenka 6-3, 6-2; and last year’s semi-finalist Daria Gavrilova eliminated Halep 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in a match that was temporarily interrupted by rain.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with