BOXING
Zhang knocks out Joyce
Chinese heavyweight Zhilei “Big Bang” Zhang knocked out Britain’s Joe Joyce in the third round of their rematch at London’s Wembley Arena on Saturday. Forty-year-old Zhang sent his 38-year-old opponent sprawling to the canvas with a huge right hook to his jaw. Joyce got back to his feet and received oxygen after the referee waved off the fight. Zhang, the 2008 Olympic silver medalist who stopped Joyce in six rounds at London’s Copper Box in April last year, is the WBO’s mandatory challenger for Ukraine’s WBO, IBO, IBF and WBA champion Oleksandr Usyk. “Like I said before the fight, it’s going to end sooner than the first one,” Zhang, now with a record of 25 wins with one defeat and one draw, told the crowd through a translator.
SOCCER
Rapinoe retires regret-free
Megan Rapinoe is to bid farewell to international soccer with no regrets about her time on and off the pitch, she told a news conference on Saturday ahead of her last game, a friendly against South Africa yesterday. The striker, who earned recognition not only for being a two-time world champion but also for her activism, gained fame for her advocacy of LGBT+ rights, solidarity with NFL player Colin Kaepernick and famously confronting former US President Donald Trump. “The off-field stuff is what is most meaningful [to me], and I think what I’m most proud of leaving this team and leaving the game,” she said. “Being so vocal about racial justice or gay rights, I feel like the team really stepped into it and took upon itself to be so much more of what we were on the field and really focus on that.”
TENNIS
Sakkari’s title wait over
Second-seeded Maria Sakkari on Saturday ended her four-year wait for a second WTA title, beating Caroline Dolehide 7-5, 6-3 to win the 1000 level Guadalajara Open. Greece’s Sakkari, ranked ninth in the world, had come up empty in six finals since her breakthrough victory in Rabat in 2019. That included the Guadalajara final last year, when she lost to the US’ Jessica Pegula, and a loss to Coco Gauff in the final at Washington this year. An emotional Sakkari thanked her coach of five years. “We’ve heard so many bad things — that I will never win a title, that I’m a top-five player with only winning one title, that was very hard for me to overcome,” she said. “I’m so happy that I did it here this week.”
SOCCER
Kane beats Bayern record
Harry Kane on Saturday bettered a record first set by legendary German striker Gerd Mueller when he hit a hat-trick in Bayern Munich’s 7-0 rout of VfL Bochum, which took the champions back to the top of the Bundesliga. Kane fired in Bayern’s second just 13 minutes in, before scoring a penalty in the second half. He added a third with two minutes remaining when he tapped in a low cross from Leroy Sane. With six goals in five games, the England captain now has more goals in his first five league matches than any other player in Bayern’s history, beating the mark of Mueller (1965), Miroslav Klose (2007) and Mario Mandzukic (2012), who all scored five times in their first five games for the club. “I’m happy to play my part and I hope there will be many more to come. So far so good,” Kane said.
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