BASEBALL
Wang’s granny found dead
An elderly man who was found dead on Sunday in the southern city of Tainan has been identified as the grandfather of Taiwanese baseball pitcher Wang Chien-ming, police said. A paperboy reported around 5 am on Sunday that he had seen someone hanging by the neck from an electric cord tied to a horizontal bar in a park in Tainan’s Guanmiao district. The police later identified the body as that of an 82-year-old man surnamed Huang. There was no suicide note and the Huang family said Huang did not show any abnormal behavior before the incident. He was the father of Wang’s biological mother. Wang was adopted at birth and raised by his uncle. According to Huang’s neighbors, he never boasted that he had a grandson who played in the Major League but he did care a lot about the 31-year-old baseball star. The 19-game winner returned to the Major mound on July 30 after a serious shoulder injury that kept him out of competition for more than two years.
JUDO
Taiwan scoops 12 medals
Sunday was a big day for Taiwanese athletes, as a judo team in Thailand brought home 12 medals, including two golds, ahead of a win by golfer Yani Tseng in the British Open. Competing among hundreds of participants from 13 countries, the 17-member Taiwan team at the Thailand International Judo North Bangkok University Championships 2011 finished with two gold, three silver and seven bronze medals. One of the gold medalists, Lin Chueh-cheng, had retired from competition but was recruited to represent Taiwan in the men’s 66kg division. The other gold medalist, 19-year-old Huang Tzu-chin, won in the women’s 78kg division. Huang is seen as one of the country’s best prospects in the sport, according to team coach Cheng Chia-te.
CRICKET
Bangladesh eye victory
Bangladesh’s batting crumbled for a second time at the Harare Sports Club on Sunday, but the tourists remain on course to win their only warm-up game against a Zimbabwe XI before next week’s one-off Test. At the close of the second day, the hosts were struggling in their quest for the 223 they needed for victory, having scored just three runs for the loss of opener Tino Mawoyo and number three Kyle Jarvis. Resuming on 42 for four in their first innings, Zimbabwe slipped to 113 all out on Sunday morning, conceding a deficit of 75, as Shafiul Islam and Rohiul Islam took three wickets each.When Bangladesh batted again, they continued to find it hard going on a pitch that Zimbabwe bowling coach Heath Streak described as “two-paced and rather unreliable.” Shakib Al Hasan top-scored with 40 as the Bangladeshis were bowled out for 147, setting the hosts 223 to win. Zimbabwe are fielding only five of the possible Test team that will face Bangladesh in Harare from Thursday.
CYCLING
Kittel takes first stage
Marcel Kittel, a German cyclist with Dutch team Skil-Shimano, has won the first stage of the Tour de Pologne on Sunday. Kittel took the yellow jersey in a ride of 101.5km over flat terrain from Pruszkow in central Poland to the capital, Warsaw. He finished the stage in 2 hours, 7 minutes, 26 seconds, just ahead of Norwegian BMC rider Alexander Kristoff. Italy’s Francesco Chicchi of the Quick Step team was third. The 68th edition of the Tour de Pologne is made up of seven stages covering 1,113km.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with