Defending champ Jelena Jankovic suffered a quarter-final upset at Stuttgart’s WTA tournament on Friday as unseeded Italian Flavia Pennetta ignored a lack of sleep to snatch a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
Having only nodded off at 3am on Friday morning after her second-round game against Nadia Petrova finished just before midnight, Pennetta rallied from losing the first set to dump out Jankovic and take her semi-final place.
Third-seed Jankovic took the first set 6-2 with ease, but Pennetta started using her forehand to devastating effect to take the second 6-4.
PHOTO: AP
The third set was a battle royal which see-sawed as Pannetta first stormed into a 2-0 lead, only for Jankovic to fight back in style to go 3-2 ahead, before the Italian made her baseline game count to take the third and the match.
Pennetta will play either world No. 1 Dinara Safina or Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska in the semi-final, while Russia’s Elena Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova will face each other in the other last four game.
While Dementieva struggled to see off France’s Marion Bartoli in her quarter-final, Kuznetsova took little more than an hour to beat Argentina’s Gisela Dulko 6-3, 6-2 and will now play her compatriot for a place in the final.
The Russian pair have met each other nine times on the WTA tour, with Kuznetsova leading the series 5-4.
Earlier, Olympic champion Dementieva booked her place in the last four with a hard-fought 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 win over Bartoli.
The second-seeded Russian needed 2 hours, 17 minutes to see off Bartoli, who fought her way back after a slow start to threaten the gold-medal winner from Beijing.
Having needed only 30 minutes to win the first set 6-2 with ease, Dementieva found she had a fight on her hands in the second when Bartoli, ranked 13th in the world, took the set 6-4 in 56 minutes.
But the French player faltered in the third when she was immediately broken as Dementieva powered into a 4-0 lead, only for Bartoli to come back to 4-3, but the Russian won the next two games to take the third 6-3.
A stunning Lamine Yamal strike on Thursday helped crown Barcelona La Liga champions with a 2-0 win over local rivals RCD Espanyol, with victory ensuring Real Madrid cannot catch them at the top of the table. Yamal’s effort and Fermin Lopez’s goal took Hansi Flick’s side seven points clear of Los Blancos with two matches remaining, to clinch Barcelona’s 28th title and complete a superb domestic treble. Only the UEFA Champions League title escaped an exciting young Barca side this season, as they won the league for the second time in six years, at Espanyol’s ground again just as in 2022-2023. Back then,
SSC Napoli will have to wait one more week to seal the Serie A title after on Sunday being held to a goalless draw at Parma, while closest rivals Inter drew 2-2 in a dramatic game with SS Lazio. Antonio Conte’s team stayed one point ahead of Inter and were unfortunate not to win after twice striking the woodwork through Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Matteo Politano, while Scott McTominay also had a free-kick tipped onto the crossbar. The away side thought they would be handed a chance to take the points from the penalty spot in the 96th minute when David Neres
Jannik Sinner on Thursday marched into the semi-finals of the Italian Open after destroying Casper Ruud in straight sets 6-0, 6-1, while Coco Gauff won a marathon three-set battle with China’s Zheng Qinwen to advance to the women’s singles final. American Gauff is to face Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in today’s title match after pulling through 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 7-6 (7/4) in a match that lasted over three-and-a-half hours. Ruud was supposed to be Sinner’s toughest test in Rome since he came back from his three-month doping ban, as the Norwegian came into the match in hot form on clay after winning in
Shohei Ohtani on Thursday delivered his first two-homer game of the season and had six RBIs as the Los Angeles Dodgers poured it on with five long balls in a 19-2 victory over the visiting Athletics. Max Muncy, Andy Pages and James Outman also hit home runs for the Dodgers, who left no doubt by taking a 13-2 lead following a seven-run third inning. Muncy and Kim Hye-seong each had three hits for Los Angeles. Dodgers right-hander Matt Sauer led off a bullpen game by allowing two runs in four innings. Left-hander Justin Wrobleski (1-1) finished with four scoreless innings after he
RSS