Last year’s semi-finalist Magdalena Rybarikova yesterday became the first seeded player to exit Wimbledon as the grass-court Grand Slam got underway in London
The Slovakian 19th seed fell to a 7-5, 6-3 defeat to Sorana Cirstea of Romania.
Rybarikova exceeded expectations by reaching the sem-finals last year, where she was beaten by eventual champion Garbine Muguruza.
Photo: AP
After winning a grass-court tournament in Birmingham last month, she appeared to be well set for another deep run at the All England Club in London.
Cirstea equaled her career-best effort by reaching the third round at Wimbledon last year, where she was also beaten by Muguruza.
She next faces Evgeniya Rodina of Russia or Antonia Lottner of Germany.
Sloane Stephens became the first big-name casualty when the world No. 4 crashed to a shock 6-1, 6-3 defeat against Croatia’s Donna Vekic.
Stephens was expected to mount a strong challenge at the All England Club after winning her maiden Grand Slam crown at the US Open last year and finishing as French Open runner-up last month, but the 25-year-old American, who has been in fine form since returning from foot surgery last year, had only gone past the Wimbledon third round once in six previous visits.
She was beaten in the first round last year and maintained her poor record on grass with another limp display against world No. 55 Vekic on Court One.
Vekic, who sealed the upset on her fourth match point, faces Slovakia’s Viktoria Kuzmova or Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson in the second round.
In the men’s singles, eight-time champion Roger Federer breezed into the second round with a 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 win over Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic.
Top seed Federer, sporting gear designed by Uniqlo after a two-decade link with Nike, next faces either Lukas Lacko of Slovakia or French qualifier Benjamin Bonzi.
Federer, who beat Marin Cilic in last year’s final, is playing Wimbledon for a 20th straight year.
Cilic also easily advanced to the second round with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 win over Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka.
The Croatian third seed hit 21 aces and a total of 44 winners — compared with one ace and six winners for Nishioka — to complete the victory in 1 hour, 46 minutes.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS