Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday crashed out of the second round of the singles at the Pan Pacific Open, then teamed up with younger sister Hsieh Yu-chieh to advance to the quarter-finals of the doubles.
Despite a spirited second-set fightback, the Taiwanese No. 1 fell to a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 defeat to Belgian ninth seed Elise Mertens in 1 hour, 53 minutes in Osaka, Japan.
World No. 33 Hsieh Su-wei converted six of 10 break points, four in the second set, but saved only five of 12 as she failed to take advantage of her opponent’s six double faults.
The victory improved the Belgian world No. 24’s career record over Hsieh to 2-1 and saw her advance to a quarter-final against the winner of today’s second-round clash between Sloane Stephens of the US and Italy’s Camila Giorgi.
Hsieh Su-wei then returned to the court with her sister and battled through the first set against Alicja Rosolska of Poland and Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine before cruising through the second for a 6-4, 6-0 victory in 55 minutes.
The sisters saved six of seven break points and converted two of six to set up a quarter-final today against top seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands.
Fellow Taiwanese sisters and second seeds Chan Hao-ching and Latisha Chan are also to play their quarter-final today against Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Caroline Garcia of France.
In yesterday’s other singles matches, fourth seed Angelique Kerber returned to her winning ways after a five-match losing streak with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over American qualifier Nicole Gibbs.
“It’s nice to have a win again,” the German told the WTA Web site. “The goal now is to finish the year as well as I can, to put all the energy which I have into this run in Asia and to play well in the next few weeks.”
Japanese top seed Naomi Osaka defeated Bulgarian qualifier Viktorija Tomova 7-5, 6-3, while fifth seed Madison Keys of the US battled back to beat Kazakh qualifier Zarina Diyas 5-7, 6-0, 6-4.
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