TENNIS
Chang Kai-chen advances
Taiwanese qualifier Chang Kai-chen yesterday advanced to the second round of the Tianjin Open with a comfortable 6-1, 6-2 victory over Vania King in just 60 minutes. World No. 220 Chang, who has been as high as No. 82 in the rankings, saved five of six break points and converted five of 10, winning 65 of the 105 points contested against the American world No. 80. Joining Chang in the second round where second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, Croatia’s Donna Vekic and Czech qualifier Lucie Hradecka.
TENNIS
Lee Ya-hsuan crashes out
Taiwanese wild card Lee Ya-hsuan yesterday crashed out of the Hong Kong Tennis Open in the first round, falling to a 6-2, 6-1 defeat to Louisa Chirico in just 58 minutes. The American world No. 60 saved six of seven break points and converted five of six, winning 61 of the 99 points contested to oust the Taiwanese world No. 281. Joining Chirico in the second round were second seed Venus Williams of the US, Australian eighth seed Daria Gavrilova and France’s Alize Cornet.
TENNIS
Wild card Wu upsets Cuevas
Chinese wild card Wu Di on Sunday upset 16th-seeded Pablo Cuevas 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7/2) in front of his hometown fans in the opening round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters. Wu, who lives in Shanghai, had failed to get past the opening round in five previous appearances in the main draw of the tournament. The 184th-ranked Chinese player broke Cuevas seven times in the match, including five in the third set. The players traded 10 breaks of serve in the deciding set. It was just the second win on the ATP Tour for Wu, who won his first match last month against Russia’s Konstantin Kravchuk in the opening round of the Chengdu Open. In other matches, South Africa’s Kevin Anderson defeated Chinese wild card Li Zhe 6-1, 6-3; Italy’s Fabio Fognini beat Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas 7-5, 6-3; and Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic ousted Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 6-2, 6-4.
BASKETBALL
Harden leads Rockets to win
Pre-season statistics often can be misleading: that might not be the case with James Harden right now. After three pre-season games, Harden has three points-assists double-doubles — the most recent one in Shanghai on Sunday, when he had 26 points and 15 assists to help the Houston Rockets beat the New Orleans Pelicans 123-117 in an NBA Global Games match. The Rockets are 3-0 in exhibitions so far this fall, scoring 131, 130 and now 123 points in those games. Harden is averaging 23.3 points and 12 assists in those three games. Fans in China, where the Rockets are enormously popular anyway — thanks in large part to Yao Ming — have taken to Harden as well, with many on Sunday sporting fake beards to mimic his look. “Great atmosphere,” Harden said. They will be seeing even more NBA in China this season. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Sunday announced an expansion of the NBA’s partnership with BesTV, one that will see up to 1,300 games per season broadcast in China. “It’s a multimedia partnership that brings the very best in television and technology to the NBA in China,” Silver said.
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