Former world No. 5 Eugenie Bouchard’s struggles continued on Thursday at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, where she fell in the first round to Germany’s Annika Beck.
Beck made the most of Bouchard’s errors to dispatch the Canadian 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.
Although it was her second first-round exit in as many tournaments since her third-round defeat at the Australian Open, Bouchard said she was encouraged to be playing pain free after battling an abdominal injury after Melbourne.
Photo: AFP
“I didn’t have a good serving day today, but I did have a pain-free serving day today, so that was really good,” said the 23-year-old, who shot to stardom with her run to the Wimbledon final in 2014.
Now that she is able to train at 100 percent, Bouchard said she hopes she can get her season on track and improve on her ranking of No. 53.
“I feel like it is now at 100 percent for sure, it has for a couple of weeks, but as soon as you start training 100 percent it doesn’t translate automatically,” she said. “You still need weeks and weeks of that to feel like normal.”
Andrea Petkovic booked an all-German clash with second seed Angelique Kerber and she was hoping some inside knowledge would help her get past her Olympic teammate and friend.
Petkovic was leading Vania King 6-0, 2-0 when the American retired from their first-round match with an ankle injury.
“That’s definitely not how I want to win a match, but up until then I was actually happy with my performance,” Petkovic said.
She will need to be at the top of her game to get past Kerber, who has won seven of their 10 prior meetings.
“We played doubles at the Olympic Games last year — we even shared a room last year in Brazil,” Petkovic said. “I know how she breathes at night, even. I hope I can use that against her in the next match.”
In the first round of the women’s doubles, Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine and Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan rallied from a set down to edge Laura Siegemund of Germany and Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 5-7, 7-6 (7/5), 10-4 in 1 hour, 56 minutes.
Bondarenko and Chan converted five of 12 break points to set up a second-round clash with Lara Arruabarrena of Spain and Liang Chen of China.
In the first round of the men’s singles, Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun fell in a 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 6-3 defeat to Canadian qualifier Vasek Pospisil in 2 hours, 29 minutes.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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