Defending champion Tseng Ya-ni (
Tseng, who barely advanced with a 10-over 152 for 36 holes of stroke play, defeated American Sung Lee, 3 and 1.
Co-medalists Mari Chun and Angela Park easily won their first-round matches.
Chun, 17, defeated Patty Chawalitmetha 4 and 3. Park, 16, birdied four of the first five holes at Swope Memorial in a 7 and 6 victory over Felicia Johnston.
The field of 64 was trimmed to 32 on Wednesday, and it was to be cut to eight yesterday with two rounds scheduled. The 36-hole final is tomorrow.
Tseng, who defeated Michelle Wie 1-up in last year's final, had to calm herself after the qualifying rounds.
"I went back to my bedroom and cried for 15 minutes because I thought I might not make the cut. I was worried," Tseng said through a translator.
Her putter, which was erratic in stroke play, was much better against Lee.
"I slept with my putter last night because my putter didn't work in the first two days," Tseng said.
"Today it worked. I'll sleep with it again tonight. I missed only two putts, so I made most of them," she said.
Schoolgirl sensation
Meanwhile schoolgirl sensation Wie rallied to beat Will Claxton on the final hole on Wednesday in the first round of match play competition in the US men's Amateur Public Links Championship.
Wie, who had to sweat out making the cut after two rounds of stroke play, took matters into her own hands as she tried to keep her hopes of a possible Masters invitation alive.
With the pair all square through 17 holes, Wie holed a 15-footer for birdie on the 384m, par-four 18th to dispatch Claxton, a quarter-finalist in this event last year.
"It felt good after I made that putt. I felt really confident because I had made a lot of birdie putts before that [three previous in the match.] I am very glad I made it," Wie said.
Wie, the first woman to qualify for a men's US Golf Association amateur event, had completed her second stroke play round on Tuesday at two-over 72 for a 36-hole total of eight-over 148.
At that point, she was tied for 68th with only the top 64 advancing to six grueling rounds of match play.
By the time the round was over, however, she was tied for 49th.
The championship will be decided by a 36-hole match tomorrow, and the winner has received an invitation to the Masters every year since 1989.
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner, Jelena Ostapenko, advanced to the Wimbledon women’s doubles final on Friday, defeating top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in straight sets. The fourth-seeded duo bounced back quickly after losing their opening service game, capitalizing on frequent unforced errors by their opponents to take the first set 7-5. Maintaining their momentum in the second set, Hsieh and Ostapenko broke serve early and held their lead to close out the match 6-4. They are set to face the eighth-seeded pair of Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens
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