Defending champion Anabel Medina Garrigues beat Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 6-3, 6-3 on Friday to advance to the final at the Strasbourg International.
The sixth-seeded Spaniard broke serve five times to set up a final against No. 5 Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia, who ended the run of unseeded Taiwanese player Chan Yung-jan (詹詠然) 6-1, 6-7 (8), 6-4.
Medina Garrigues, who also won in 2005, is bidding for an eighth career title and a first since winning last year at Strasbourg.
PHOTO: AFP
In a match lasting two hours, 19 minutes, Srebotnik broke Chan’s serve seven times.
The clay-court tournament is a warmup to the French Open, which starts tomorrow.
■ HYPO GROUP
AP, POERTSCHACH, AUSTRIA
After defeating Russian compatriot Igor Kunitsyn 6-3, 6-2 in Friday’s semi-finals, top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko was set for a showdown with defending champion Juan Monaco in the final of the Hypo Group International yesterday.
Second-seeded Monaco saved three match points before beating Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4) on Friday.
■ WORLD TEAM CUP
AP, DUSSELDORF, GERMANY
Dmitry Tursunov won his singles and doubles matches to lead Russia over Germany 3-0 on Friday and a place in the World Team Cup final against Sweden.
Sweden beat the US 3-0 in the last of the round-robin matches and will seek a fourth title in its sixth final. Russia has yet to win the title after finishing runner-up three straight years from 2000 to 2002.
Tursunov beat Nicolas Kiefer 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in the Blue Group match to add to Igor Andreev’s win over Philipp Kohlschreiber. In the doubles, Tursunov and Mikhail Youzhny beat Christopher Kas and Philipp Petzschner 7-6 (2), 6-3.
Sweden had already qualified for the final from the Red Group by winning both of Thursday’s singles matches. It completed the victory as Robert Lindstedt and Robin Soderling crushed Wayne Odesnik and Bobby Reynolds 6-1, 6-2.
Kiefer converted just one of 13 break points against Tursunov, holding two break points for a 5-3 lead in the first set before netting a backhand to give Tursunov a break for 5-4.
In other matches, Italy earned a 2-1 win over Spain, as Simone Bolelli defeated Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-3 and then teamed with Potito Starace to beat Lopez and Marcel Granollers 6-4, 7-6 (3).
David Ferrer got Spain’s only win by beating Starace on Thursday.
Argentina defeated the Czech Republic 2-1 thanks to Lucas Arnold and Sebastian Prieto who beat Tomas Berdych and Pavel Vizner 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung on Sunday topped the men’s horizontal bar event at the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) World Cup in Osijek, Croatia, scoring 15.233 to take his third title this season. Tang delivered an outstanding performance in the final, earning a difficulty score of 6.500 and an execution score of 8.633 with a 0.1 stick bonus. His closest competitor was Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan, who finished second with 14.933 points. It was Tang’s third gold medal in the FIG World Cup series this year, following his horizontal bar wins in Azerbaijan on March 8, and in Turkey on March
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Taiwan’s Lee Hao-yu on Friday went 0-for-3 in his MLB debut for the Detroit Tigers against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, becoming the 19th Taiwan-born player to reach the big leagues. The Tigers ultimately lost 1-0 in 10 innings, ending their six-game winning streak. The 23-year-old started at third base and batted eighth for Detroit. He was promoted from Triple-A Toledo ahead of the four-game series against the Red Sox at the latter’s home stadium, replacing injured utility player Zach McKinstry. “Being right-handed, and given our schedule, I think six of the next 12 games are going to
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