Taiwanese sisters Latisha Chan and Chan Hao-ching, as well as Hsieh Su-wei, eased past their opponents on Saturday to advance to the last 16 at Wimbledon.
The seventh-seeded Chan sisters ousted the pairing of Elixane Lechemia of France and Ingrid Neel of the US 6-4, 6-1 in 73 minutes.
They kept an early 3-2 lead in the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve, when the match had to be suspended due to rain. After the game resumed, they managed to secure a break point and finished the set 6-4.
Photo: AP
The pairing overwhelmed their opponents in the second set, breaking three of their serves and ending up 6-1.
Today, they face the duo of Harriet Dart and Heather Watson of Britain.
Meanwhile, third seeds Hsieh and Elise Mertens of Belgium defeated the pairing of Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland and Misaki Doi of Japan 6-1, 5-7, 6-0 in 105 minutes.
Except for the second set, when Hsieh and Mertens lost their service twice, the rest of the match was a breeze to them.
Today, the duo faces the pairing of Asia Muhammad and Jessica Pegula of the US.
In women’s singles, world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty prevailed 6-3, 7-5 on Centre Court to reach the last 16, after the Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova posed a resolute challenge while failing to find answers to the Australian’s immaculate sliced returns and spin in their first meeting.
“It certainly wasn’t going smoothly,” Barty said in her on-court interview. “Katerina brought an incredible level and it was a lot of fun playing out here. I knew I had to play very near my best to be able to compete with her today, so I’m happy to be able to play some good stuff.”
“I’m very privileged to be in the second week of Wimbledon again,” Barty said. “This is genuinely one of my favorite weeks of the year, so to be prolonging my stay is a lot of fun.”
With the 25-year-old boasting wins in the past against players such as Serena Williams, Simona Halep and Naomi Osaka, Barty needed to do her homework properly against an opponent just a couple of weeks younger than her.
The Australian, whose best performance at Wimbledon was also a run to the fourth round in 2019, denied Siniakova pace on the ball, and heavily used her backhand slices and drop shots.
The 64th-ranked Czech was often left dejected and deflated, as she failed to dig out the sharply dropping returns from the Australian, who won her maiden major at the French Open in 2019.
However, what Siniakova lacked in skill, she made up for with determination. She had a chance to get an early break, but hit a volley wide on break point with the entire court open.
Barty stayed calm and composed. A single break was enough for her in the opening set, and the Australian seemed to be cruising with a double break and a 3-0 lead in the second.
After another failed return against a Barty slice, Siniakova’s frustrations rose and she vented her ire with a swipe of her racket, getting a warning from the umpire who thought that she had hit the grass.
Siniakova had avoided the grass and hit her shoe, although her protests made no difference.
The Czech managed to calm down and staged a late fightback by getting both service breaks back.
She saved a match point to get the set back on serve at 5-5, but Barty immediately broke and then closed out the contest when a backhand return from her opponent sailed long.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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
RSS