World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka and No. 2 Maria Sharapova crashed out of the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament in contrasting styles yesterday.
Azarenka, from Belarus, pulled out citing fatigue, while the French Open champion from Russia went down to Samantha Stosur of Australia 4-6, 6-7 (10/12) in the quarter-finals.
However, defending champion and world No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland safely went through, beating 2010 Tokyo champion Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-4, 6-3.
“Before the tournament on Sunday, I started not feeling very good, just low energy,” said Azarenka, 23, giving Angelique Kerber of Germany a free ticket to the semi-finals.
“It took too much energy in the last two matches and today it’s not possible for me. Maybe it’s because of the tiredness from the whole year. It was difficult to focus between points,” the top seed added.
Two-time champion Sharapova took a service break lead first in both sets, losing the advantage both times, before coming back from 3-5 down in the second set to force a tie breaker.
Sharapova staved off four match points in the tie breaker, but surrendered the match on Stosur’s fifth match point.
“Obviously she was up 5-3 and had a chance to win the match comfortably. I had chances in the tie break [to win the set]. Just a one point here, one point there changed a little bit, but it didn’t go my way,” Sharapova said.
“Although I have a good record against her, she plays long and difficult. She’s a steady player on the court, she’s a difficult opponent, I could have returned better, but she played a solid match today. She was much more consistent. It’s disappointing to lose,” the second seed added.
Meanwhile, Stosur said: “It was tough. I knew I lost nine points in a row [at 5-3 in the second set]. I just tried to start well in the tie breaker and I did get off to a good start. I just tried to keep going forward.”
In the semi-finals on Friday, Stosur will play Nadia Petrova of Russia, who came back from behind to beat sixth seed Sara Errani of Italy 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
Batting great Virat Kohli yesterday announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket, just days before India name their squad for a tour to England. Kohli, who scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, posted his decision on Instagram five days after India captain Rohit Sharma called time on his own Test career. Since making his debut in 2011, Kohli struck 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out, mainly batting at number four in the order. “It’s been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket,” the
RSS