Novak Djokovic continued his scintillating run of form yesterday as he breezed past Croatian Borna Coric 6-3, 6-4 to win the Shanghai Masters title for the fourth time.
With a clever mix of groundstrokes, the 31-year-old Serb broke Coric’s serve in the sixth game and made a series of forays to the net as he consolidated his lead.
Djokovic grabbed the opening set with a hold to love, having dropped just four points on his serve overall.
Photo: AFP
Coric, who collected one of the biggest wins of his career by defeating Roger Federer in the semi-finals, looked far from his best as he dropped his serve in the opening game of the second set.
Coric saved three match points to hold serve in the ninth game, but then Djokovic served out to clinch his fourth title of the season.
HONG KONG OPEN
AP, HONG KONG
Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska won her maiden WTA title yesterday by upsetting sixth-seeded Wang Qiang of China 6-2, 6-1 in 65 minutes at the Hong Kong Open. The 18-year-old was playing in her first career WTA final.
Yastremska is the sixth teenager to advance to a WTA final this year and the second to win a title.
Prior to arriving in Hong Kong, Yastermska’s best result was reaching the Istanbul quarter-finals last year.
The victory, in which she posted 33 winners to 21 unforced errors, will move the 102nd-ranked Yastremska to a new career high ranking in the top 80 when the next rankings are released today.
Yastremska’s win prevented the 24th-ranked Wang from winning her third career title.
Wang, who was playing in her fifth consecutive semi-final, will move up to a career-high No. 23 ranking despite not lifting the title.
TIANJIN OPEN
AFP, BEIJING
Caroline Garcia won her first title of the year yesterday as the French player defeated Karolina Pliskova to edge a nervy Tianjin Open final.
The 16th-ranked Garcia battled through a narrow first set before streaking away in the second to beat the Czech top seed 7-6 (9/7), 6-3.
The 24-year-old Garcia — seeded second in Tianjin — enjoyed a breakthrough season, winning back-to-back titles in Wuhan and Beijing, and qualifying for the season-ending WTA Finals.
She has struggled this year, with her China Open defense in Beijing coming to a meek end in the last 16 as she lost the deciding set 6-0 to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
The Tianjin title is the sixth of Garcia’s career.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later