Former world No. 1s Venus Williams and Ana Ivanovic endured a humbling start to the season after the top two seeds were dumped out of the Auckland Classic in the first round by unheralded opponents yesterday.
Russian teenager Daria Kasatkina, ranked 75th in the world, claimed arguably the biggest win of her career in taking out the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Williams 7-6 (4/7), 3-6, 6-3 in the Australian Open warmup event.
Williams, 35, made more than 70 unforced errors in the scratchy display where she won the title last year to start a standout season that saw her claim the WTA’s Comeback of the Year award after two other tournament wins in China.
Former French Open champion Ivanovic had little answer to the supreme serving of British qualifier Naomi Broady, who racked up 14 aces in a 7-5, 6-4 win.
The 25-year-old from Manchester maintained her first serve percentage at almost 70 as she took out the second seeded Serb to leave the US$250,000 tournament shorn of its headline acts.
Dane Caroline Wozniacki was not at her best on the blue New Zealand hard courts, but avoided making it a hat-trick of first-round exits by former world No. 1s as she beat Danka Kovinic of Montenegro 6-4 6-4.
SHENZHEN OPEN
AFP, BEIJING
Double Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova went out of the WTA Shenzhen Open in the first round yesterday, retiring hurt in a shock exit for the world No. 6.
The second seed was broken twice as she lost the first set 6-2 against China’s Zheng Saisai — ranked 72 in the world — in 41 minutes, and dropped out before a point was played in the second set.
It was Kvitova’s second consecutive first-round exit in China, after she went out at the first hurdle at the China Open in October — when she played on painkillers while suffering the ongoing effects of glandular fever.
Another unseeded home player also dumped out a higher-ranked player at the US$500,000 tournament, with Britain’s Johanna Konta losing to Wang Qiang.
The fifth seed took the first set against Wang, but eventually went out 6-3, 3-6, 3-6 in 1 hour, 50 minutes.
There were no such problems for the Polish top seed Agnieszka Radwanska, the world No. 5 who won the WTA Finals in Singapore in November last year. She brushed aside Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic 6-4, 6-3, in little more than an hour.
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
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
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