BADMINTON
Tai advances to quarters
Taiwanese ace Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the Malaysia Open after an easy victory against Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand, winning 21-16, 21-14 in only 36 minutes. In the first set, the world No. 1 and the world No. 25 kept the scores close at 10-11 until Tai consolidated a bigger lead by scoring four consecutive points, after which she never looked back to win 21-16. The second set took a similar course when the score became tied at 8-8, until Tai broke through with an eight-point lead to finish 21-14. The two have played each other eight times in the past, with Tai winning five, including three straight since 2017. Tai is next to face either world No. 8 Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand or world No. 11 Zhang Beiwen of the US in the quarter-finals. The tournament, which ends on Sunday and carries a total purse of US$700,000, is the first of five Badminton World Federation World Tour Super 750 events this year.
SOCCER
Bayern edge Heidenheim
Robert Lewandowski on Wednesday scored twice off the bench to send 10-man Bayern Munich into the DFB-Pokal semi-finals as his late penalty secured a 5-4 home win against second-division Heidenheim. Lewandowski came on for the second half and netted the winning penalty six minutes from time for 18-time cup winners Bayern, who had Niklas Suele sent off after 15 minutes. The Bundesliga champions took the lead through Leon Goretzka’s 12th-minute opener, but goals from Robert Glatzel and Marc Schnatterer put the visitors ahead. Thomas Mueller equalized eight minutes into the second half, before Lewandowski and Serge Gnabry gave the home side a two-goal cushion. Yet, Heidenheim did not give up and Glatzel netted twice more, including a penalty, in the space of four minutes to level. A handball in the area earned Bayern a penalty that Lewandowski coolly converted, sending them through to the last four along with Hamburg SV, RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen, who claimed a 2-0 win at Schalke 04 thanks to second-half goals by Milot Rashica and Davy Klaassen.
SOCCER
Montpellier beat Guingamp
Montpellier Herault on Wednesday ended a poor run at home with a 2-0 win over struggling En Avant de Guingamp in Ligue 1 as midfielder Mihailo Ristic scored his first goal for the southern side. Montpellier had not won at Stade de la Mosson since Jan. 27. Since then, Michel der Zakarian’s players had drawn twice and lost once at their home ground. “We lost many points at home, we needed a win tonight,” Montpellier captain Vitorino Hilton said. After conceding at least one goal in their previous five games, Montpellier rediscovered their defensive stability, which has been a trademark of the team over the past two years. Striker Andy Delort opened the scoring in the 22nd minute from Hilton’s pass for his 11th goal of the season and Ristic completed the win 11 minutes from time. Ristic, who joined Montpellier in January, was starting only his second Ligue 1 match. Montpellier moved to seventh in the standings while Guingamp, who lost the Coupe de la Ligue final to RC Strasbourg last weekend, remained in the relegation zone. Strasbourg celebrated their title with a 4-0 rout of sixth-placed Stade de Reims, punctuated by an Anthony Goncalves double. It was Reims’ first loss in 14 matches.
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