Wang Shixian on Tuesday beat top-ranked Carolina Marin 19-21, 21-18, 21-19 as China dispatched Spain 5-0 in Uber Cup badminton.
Marin eliminated Wang at the World Championships last year, but Wang beat her a second straight time in the feature opening singles, as China earned their second win in Group A and a place in the quarter-finals.
Denmark also registered their second win and progressed after beating Malaysia 3-2 in the same group.
Anna Thea Madsen won the deciding match against Ho Yen-mei 22-24, 21-13, 21-13.
In Group C, Thailand won 3-2 against Indonesia, taking one of the doubles in 1 hour, 15 minutes after saving two match points. Hong Kong beat Bulgaria 3-2 in the same group.
The Group D ties went as expected, with sweeps for India and Japan against Germany and Australia respectively, setting up a group decider yesterday.
In the Thomas Cup, five-time champions Malaysia registered a 3-2 win over South Korea to top Group C with three wins.
Malaysia won the singles and South Korea the doubles, the tie going to the fifth match, where Chong Wei-feng’s experience prevailed against Jeon Hyeok-jin 21-16, 21-16.
South Korea still advanced to the quarter-finals with two wins. England finished the group campaign with a first win, defeating Germany 4-1.
Thirteen-time champions Indonesia downed Thailand 4-1 to advance.
Hong Kong registered their first victory, winning 3-2 and handing a depleted India a second successive loss.
In Group D, eight-time runners-up Denmark and Taiwan notched their second successive 5-0 victories to ensure last-eight berths. Denmark cruised against New Zealand without dropping a game, as did Taiwan against South Africa.
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
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