The Taichung Wagor Suns and the Kaohsiung Aquas are to face off in the T1 League’s inaugural playoff finals tomorrow, after winning their respective semi-final series over the weekend.
On Friday, the Aquas overcame a third-quarter scare to defeat the Taipei-based Taiwan Beer Herobears 99-93, while the Suns on Saturday outlasted the New Taipei CTBC DEA 80-75 in the final game of their best-of-three semi-final series.
The Aquas swept the Herobears, after beating them 114-91 at Kaohsiung Fongshan Stadium on Wednesday. The Suns on Tuesday last week beat DEA 102-96 in their first game at National Taiwan University of Sport Gymnasium, but DEA forced a third game after beating Taichung 118-96 on Thursday at New Taipei City’s Hsinchuang Gymnasium.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The first two games of the best-of-five playoff series are to be played in Kaohsiung tomorrow and Thursday, followed by Game 3 in Taichung on Saturday. Games 4 and 5, if necessary, would be in Taichung on Monday and Kaohsiung on Wednesday next week.
“It’s going to be a big battle,” Suns head coach Iurgi Caminos said after Saturday’s game. “At the same time, we know that we are able to beat them and this is important for us.”
The Suns led for most of Saturday’s game until DEA center Kevin Allen tied it 65-65 with about seven-and-a-half minutes left in the fourth quarter.
The Suns responded with a 13-4 run to widen the deficit to 78-69 with only 2 minutes, 17 seconds remaining, forcing New Taipei City to call a time-out, but the Suns managed to hold on to the lead to end DEA’s season.
DEA shooting guard Hsieh Ya-hsuan led all scorers with 23 points, while Suns guard Anthony Tucker and forward Sani Sakakini led their team with 17 points each.
In the P.League+, the Formosa Taishin Dreamers on Saturday overpowered the New Taipei Kings 100-85 at Hsinchuang Gymnasium in the league’s final regular-season game.
The Dreamers finished the regular season with a 19-11 record and enter the four-team playoffs as the second seeds, behind the Hsinchu JKO Lioneers, while the Taipei Fubon Braves are third seeds, followed by the Kings.
The playoffs start on Friday with the Lioneers hosting the Kings at Hsinchu County Stadium in Game 1 of their five-game series, while the Dreamers are to play the Braves on Saturday.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with