Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun advanced in a thriller at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday, while the tournament lost its first seeded player yesterday when Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinola was beaten 6-1, 7-5 in the first round by close friend and training partner Joao Sousa.
Lu defeated Karen Khachanov of Russia 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (11/9) in their first-round encounter despite battling illness.
Lu posted a Chinese-language report on Facebook that said the travel from India to Auckland made it difficult, but he was happy to prevail.
Photo: EPA
Lu faces Steve Jason of the US today.
Ramos-Vinola and Portugal’s Sousa — both based in Barcelona, but supporters of the city’s rival soccer clubs — described their match as “a kind of a derby.”
“On court we are no friends, but off court we are,” Sousa said.
Ramos-Vinola’s main weapon is his powerful forehand, but he lacked accuracy in his first match of the season, missing too many easy points in the first set and making 18 unforced errors to Sousa’s eight. He dropped serve in the fourth game and again in the sixth to lose the first set in 32 minutes.
“I think in the first set I was playing very good tennis, a great level,” Sousa said. “The second set I was keeping the level up, then he started to play a little bit better and I had to come back, but it was good for me. I think I played a great match and I’m really happy to be in the second round finally here.”
Additional reporting by staff writer
SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL
Reuters, SYDNEY
Angelique Kerber’s build-up for next week’s Australian Open suffered a setback with the German world No. 1 going down in straight sets to Russian teenager Daria Kasatkina in the second round of the Sydney International yesterday.
On a manic day for the seeded players, 19-year-old Kasatkina won 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 against two-time Grand Slam winner Kerber.
“It’s difficult to explain really. I beat the No. 1 in the world and it doesn’t happen every day,” Kasatkina, ranked 26 in the world, said in a courtside interview.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova earlier won an all-Russian battle against Svetlana Kuznetsova to oust the defending champion in straight sets.
Pavlyuchenkova beat world No. 9 Kuznetsova 7-5, 6-3 to set up a quarter-final clash against Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, who caused another upset by defeating No. 3 seed Dominika Cibulkova.
Ninth seed Italian Robert Vinci fell to Czech Barbora Strycova 6-2, 6-3, but former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki bucked the trend with a 6-0, 7-5 win over Kazakh Yulia Putintseva.
HOBART INTERNATIONAL
AFP, HOBART, Australia
Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung exited the Hobart International yesterday, eliminated from the women’s doubles along with partner Nicole Gibbs of the US, while Elise Mertens, Veronica Cepede, Monica Niculescu and Jana Fett advanced in the second round of the women’s singles.
Chuang and Gibbs were beaten 6-0, 7-5 by Chinese-Canadian pair Yang Zhouxuan and Gabriela Dabrowski in 1 hour, 2 minutes, saving just one of seven break points.
BANGKOK OPEN
Staff writer
Qualifier Jimmy Wang of Taiwan was eliminated in the first round at the Bangkok Open by Sadio Doumbia of France yesterday.
Doumbia won 6-3, 7-6 (10-8) against the 31-year-old world No. 429, who was born in Saudi Arabia.
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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
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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