TENNIS
Li Na has baby girl
Retired Chinese tennis star Li Na, who is credited with introducing the game to the country’s masses, yesterday announced that she and her husband have a newborn daughter. “Jiang Shan and I would like to introduce our Alisa to my lovely ‘Na fans,’” the 33-year-old wrote in an early morning posting on Sina Weibo. “We are happy and we love her very much.” Li did not specify when the baby was born. A picture of a red baby footprint was attached under the message. The announcement attracted more than 15,000 comments and was reposted more than 21,000 times in less than five hours, with Web users expressing their congratulations and best wishes. Li, who won nine titles in her career — including the Australian Open and French Open — unexpectedly retired in September last year. She announced her pregnancy in January in front of 15,000 cheering fans at the Australian Open, where she was a guest of honor, saying she has long wanted a child and to be a stay-at-home mum.
SOCCER
Portugal make U20 playoffs
Portugal swept imperiously into the knockout rounds of the Under-20 World Cup in Wellington, New Zealand, with a 4-0 win over Qatar yesterday, while Mexico revived their campaign after a woeful opening match by defeating Uruguay 2-1. Two Mexico players were sent off in their first-up, 2-0 loss to Mali, but they demonstrated greater discipline against Uruguay, rallying after conceding a late equalizer to seal the win with a goal in the third minute of stoppage time. Portugal beat Senegal 3-0 in their opening match and guaranteed their place in the round of 16 with an impressive win over the Asian Confederation champion. Qatar’s second straight loss ruled them out of contention for the next round, and raised further questions about FIFA’s decision to award the 2022 World Cup to a nation that has little soccer pedigree.
ATHLETICS
Rudisha out of Birmingham
Kenya’s Olympic 800m champion and world record holder David Rudisha has pulled out of Sunday’s Diamond League meet in Birmingham due to fresh injury fears. The middle distance star wobbled out of a race in Ostrava, Czech Republic, late last month, holding his leg in pain. “I just can’t risk a race that soon. I am making good progress these last days, but it will be just a few days too soon,” he was quoted as saying the Standard newspaper. Rudisha, 26, is currently undergoing treatment in Europe. His coach said the injury “was just muscle spasm, which looked quite severe on television, but as we have established, it was not too serious.” Rudisha has struggled to return to form after battling a nagging knee injury which forced him to miss the 2013 world championships in Moscow.
SOCCER
Cruzeiro hire Luxemburgo
Cruzeiro have hired Vanderlei Luxemburgo to replace Marcelo Oliveira, the coach who led the team to the Brazilian league titles for the past two seasons. Tuesday’s announcement came two days after a 2-1 loss at Figueirense in the fourth round of the Brazilian league left the Belo Horizonte club in second-to-last place in the 20-team standings with only one point. Last week, Cruzeiro were eliminated by Argentina’s River Plate in the quarter-finals of the Copa Libertadores after a 3-0 home loss. It will be Luxemburgo’s second stint with Cruzeiro. He coached the team for the first time from 2002 to 2004, winning three titles in 2003. The former Brazil and Real Madrid coach was at Cruzeiro’s helm for 107 matches, winning 68, losing 17 and drawing 22.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
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