Seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams eased through to the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open yesterday, dazzling China’s Wang Yafan.
Wang, 21, struggled to get into the match and Williams strode to a 6-0, 6-2 victory.
“I had only seen Williams before on TV,” Wang said through a translator. “I was nervous of playing someone so well-known and that meant I didn’t play very well.”
Williams next faces French eighth seed Alize Cornet in the quarter-finals.
The American has had a resurgent season and is fighting for a place in the eight-player WTA Finals in Singapore on Oct. 25.
Cornet beat Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova in 6-7 (4/7), 6-3, 6-4.
Caroline Garcia of France breezed into the quarter-finals with a 6-0, 6-2 win against Anastasiya Komardina.
She faces world No. 10 Angelique Kerber of Germany, who defeated Japan’s Kurumi Nara 6-2, 6-2.
The other quarter-finals see former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic meet Russian sixth seed Daria Gavrilova and Britain’s Heather Watson play fifth seed Samantha Stosur of Australia.
In the doubles quarter-finals, Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung and Luksika Kumkhum were ousted by the fourth seeds.
Alize Cornet of France and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan claimed 6-2, 7-6 (7/3) victory in 1 hour, 20 minutes.
TIANJIN OPEN
AFP, BEIJING
World No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland swept into the Tianjin Open quarter-finals yesterday, dismissing the host country’s Wang Qiang in straight sets.
The second seed prevailed 6-1, 6-1 in less than an hour, but sixth seed Teliana Pereira of Brazil went out to unseeded Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, who won 6-2, 5-7, 6-1.
The tournament has seen a run of upsets, the most spectacular when Italian top seed Flavia Pennetta, who won the US Open last month, went out to a player ranked more than 400 places below her, Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok.
Kichenok was eliminated herself yesterday by Duan Yingying of China 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 6-4.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
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