Taiwanese tennis player Chan Hao-ching and her Japanese partner Shuko Aoyama were on Saturday knocked out of the women’s doubles semi-finals at the Rothesay Open in Nottingham, England.
The third-seeded pair were defeated in 79 minutes by top seeds Zhang Shuai of China and Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil 4-6, 4-6.
The straight-set loss belied a relatively close grass-court match, in which they fought to a 4-4 tie in the first set, before Zhang and Haddad Maia pulled away in the final two games.
Photo: AP
In the second set, Chan and Aoyama fell behind 2-5 before winning the next two games, only to slip up in the 10th game of the set, dashing any hopes of a comeback.
In Germany, Andy Murray said it was “not really a match” and “not much fun” after Australian firebrand Nick Kyrgios was penalized a game following another on-court meltdown in their Stuttgart Open semi-final.
Murray reached his 70th career final with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 win.
Kyrgios was penalized a point and then a game for unsportsmanlike conduct to trail 1-0 after losing the opening set in 65 minutes.
He smashed a racquet and exchanged words with a group in the crowd.
The 27-year-old later said he was racially abused.
“When is this going to stop? Dealing with racist slurs from the crowd?” Kyrgios wrote on Instagram.
“I understand that my behavior isn’t the best all the time, but ‘you little black sheep,’ ‘shut up and play’ — little comments like this are not acceptable,” he wrote.
“When I retaliate to the crowd I get penalized. This is messed up,” he added.
After the tournament supervisor was called, Kyrgios merely went through the motions on court as Murray took complete command to secure victory in 93 minutes.
“The second set was not much fun to play, it was not very competitive,” Murray said.
“It wasn’t really a match. He started well, but closer to the end he got frustrated. The first set was tough and the end of the first set was the crucial part of the match,” he said. “You expect things to happen against him, so I’m not surprised when they do.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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