Badminton’s world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying yesterday was handed a tough draw at Thailand’s World Tour Finals, as she was bracketed with home favorite Ratchanok Intanon and Indian star P.V. Sindhu.
Tai, former world champion Ratchanok and Olympic silver-medalist Sindhu were grouped with Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong in Group B for the round-robin stage of the biosecure tournament in Bangkok.
Tai faces Sindhu today.
Photo: BADMINTON ASSOCIATION OF THAILAND / AFP
The delayed season finale from last year is the third
behind-closed-doors event in three weeks in the Thai capital as badminton resumes after months of near-inactivity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spanish top seed Carolina Marin, seeking a hat-trick of wins in Bangkok, faces South Korean teen An Se-young, Canada’s Michelle Li and Russia’s Evgeniya Kosetskaya in Group A.
In the men’s singles, Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen — who is also unbeaten over the past two weeks — faces Taiwan’s world No. 2 Chou Tien-chen, Indonesia’s Anthony Ginting and Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia in Group A, while Taiwan’s Wang Tzu-wei faces Anders Antonsen of Denmark, Angus Ng of Hong Kong and Kidambi Srikanth of India in Group B.
Chou is to play Lee today, while Wang faces Ng.
Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin of Taiwan face Malaysian pairing Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi , and two Canadian duos in Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge, and Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in Group A of the men’s doubles.
Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin are to play Ong and Teo in their first match.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier