Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching rallied from a set down to advance to the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Aegon Open in Nottingham, England, yesterday, while the top seeds were ousted in the first round.
Third seeds Chan and Casey Dellacqua battled to a 4-6, 7-6 (7/1), 10-5 victory over US duo Ashley Weinhold and Caitlin Whoriskey in 1 hour, 34 minutes.
The Taiwanese-Australian pairing saved six of 10 break points and converted three of five to advance to a quarter-final clash with either Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung and Renata Voracova of the Czech Republic or Johanna Konta of Britain and Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium, who were due to play their first-round match later yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
Meanwhile, top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Olga Savchuk of Ukraine crashed out of the tournament after falling to a 7-5, 6-1 defeat by Australian duo Monique Adamczak and Storm Sanders in 60 minutes.
In the second round of the singles, Croatia’s Donna Vekic defeated Julia Boserup of the US 6-3, 6-4 in 1 hour, 25 minutes to advance.
Vekic was joined in the quarter-finals by Australia’s Ashleigh Barty, who eased past Croatian qualifier Jana Fett 6-2, 6-1, and US qualifier Kristie Ahn, who ousted Magda Linette of Poland 6-3, 6-1.
Photo: AP
At the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart, Germany, on Tuesday, Tommy Haas lined up a second-round meeting with Roger Federer, while seeded players Gilles Simon and Viktor Troicki both made an early exit.
The 39-year-old Haas, playing for the last time at the grass-court tournament, defeated Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 in their first-round match.
The victory set up another clash with Federer, who has already won 15 titles on grass and is playing again after a 10-week break.
“I’m really looking forward to playing the next game against one of my closest friends,” Haas said. “We had many great battles in the past. He is the best player on grass in history. I’ll definitely need to play better to have a chance, but you never know what can happen.”
Feliciano Lopez of Spain upset the seventh seed Simon 6-3, 6-3, while Benoit Paire of France beat eighth seed Viktor Troicki 6-4, 6-4.
German qualifiers Peter Gojowczyk and Yannick Hanfmann both advanced, as did fellow countryman Philipp Kohlschreiber, who was leading 6-1 when Marcos Baghdatis retired.
Another German, Florian Mayer, later lost 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 7-6 (7/1) to Jeremy Chardy of France, who next plays Lopez.
Jerzy Janowicz of Poland defeated Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, while Bernard Tomic prevailed over Stephane Robert of France, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2.
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