Roger Federer sprinkled his magic all over Centre Court on Friday, beating resurgent German Tommy Haas 7-6, 7-5, 6-3 to reach his seventh men’s singles final at Wimbledon, a feat not achieved since the abolition of the Challenge Round in 1922.
Federer’s virtuoso performance, watched by the lucky 15,000 with Centre Court tickets, was supposed to the curtain-raiser for the thousands massing in front of the huge screen on the grassy expanse known as Henman Hill for the Murray blockbuster later.
With Federer’s game back to its flamboyant best, he would have been supremely confident whoever stood across the net today, but he will sleep well knowing only Roddick, who he has an 18-2 career record against, now stands in the way of a record 15th grand slam title.
Federer unleashed every shot in his armory against a gallant Haas, ending a two-hour exhibition with a slam-dunk smash reminiscent of Pete Sampras in his prime, the American he currently shares the Grand Slam titles record with.
The only time Federer looked remotely flustered was in the fourth game of the third set when, after a ferocious exchange of groundstrokes, Haas landed a backhand on a rough patch of the baseline and it leapt like a kicking horse off Federer’s frame.
If the German could have hit that uneven spot 100 times he may have stood a chance, but that would require a touch of genius and that was all on the other side of the net.
In boy’s doubles on Friday, Taiwan’s last players were knocked out as Hsieh Cheng-peng and Huang Liang-chi lost to German Alexandros-Ferd Georgoudas and Belarusian Andrei Vasilevski 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
‘GLOBAL PRESSURE’: LA’s Dave Roberts said that it was difficult to appreciate the ‘pressure on a global scale’ his starter was under ‘pitching for his country’ The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled out US$1 billion for Japanese talent in the off-season and it is paying off in the MLB playoffs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday outdueled Yu Darvish in a historic post-season matchup of Japanese-born starters, while the Dodgers got home runs from Kike Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 and advance to the National League Championship Series. “It’s pretty sweet,” a smiling Freddie Freeman said. Yamamoto allowed two hits over five innings for the win, getting pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals who were meeting in a
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