Taiwan on Saturday swept Mexico in the first day of their Davis Cup World Group playoff tie, while three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka rolled back the clock to secure a thrilling win for Switzerland over Germany in their qualifier.
World No. 110 Tseng Chun-hsing beat Mexico’s Cesar Ramirez 6-4, 6-3 in straight sets on a clay court in Metepec, Mexico, while Hsu Yu-hsiou of Changhua City dominated Alan Fernando Rubio Fierros 7-5, 6-3.
Their showdown started under controversy after a group of Mexican players last week said they would not compete as they were not given enough notice about the date or venue by the Mexican Tennis Federation. The federation later named a new slate of players, and said that some who had protested were ineligible for the tournament.
Hsu and Jason Jung were yesterday to play Luciano Alcocer and Isaac Arturo Arevalo in doubles, while Tseng would take on Rubio Fierros and Hsu would play Ramirez.
The 37-year-old Wawrinka — part of the Swiss 2014 Davis Cup winning team, but who had not played in the event since 2015 — beat Daniel Altmaier 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 to seal a 3-2 win in Trier.
It was Wawrinka’s first win of the tie after losing to Alexander Zverev on Friday and the doubles on Saturday.
Switzerland would take one of the 12 spots up for grabs for the Davis Cup Finals group stage in September.
A busy weekend of ties had 24 nations competing with the 12 winners joining last year’s champions Canada, runners-up Australia and wildcards Spain and Italy.
The US swept Uzbekistan aside with a 4-0 victory, while the Ymer brothers, Mikael and Elias, guided Sweden to a 3-1 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mackenzie McDonald and Tommy Paul had given the Americans a 2-0 lead on Friday before the doubles pairing of Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram beat Sergey Fomin and Sanjar Ayziev 6-2, 6-4 to give the record 32-time winners an unassailable lead.
Britain also made it through as Cameron Norrie sealed a 3-1 lead against Colombia in Bogota by beating Nicolas Mejia 6-4, 6-4.
World No. 253 Mejia had given Colombia the lead on Friday by upsetting Dan Evans on the clay.
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
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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