SURFING
Dolphins add to Bryan’s win
Hawaii’s Gabriela Bryan yesterday shared a wave with a pod of dolphins as she won her first world championship tour event over Californian rookie Sawyer Lindblad in pumping surf at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro. Both Bryan and Lindblad had to go deep to avoid the mid-season cut and secure their place for the remainder of this year’s tour. Bryan took a commanding lead with a 7.83 for two powerful turns on her forehand as a handful of dolphins swooped around her. “When I kicked out, I was just wow. That wave was sent to me by someone, the dolphins in it. It was magical,” said Bryan, who scored an even better 8.10 on her second scoring ride. Meanwhile, Margaret River local Jack Robinson out-dueled against Hawaii’s two-time world champion John John Florence in the men’s final, with the event’s two form surfers trading huge carves on the double-overhead walls.
SNOOKER
Brecel succumbs to ‘curse’
World snooker champion Luca Brecel on Saturday became the latest victim of the so-called “Curse of the Crucible” when his title defense ended on the first day of this year’s tournament. David Gilbert, who had to qualify for the championships, reeled off the final four frames to claim a stunning 10-9 win over his Belgian opponent. Brecel becomes the 19th first-time world champion to fail to defend his title at the Crucible Theatre venue in Sheffield. “It was a good year, and now I can look forward to being a non-world champion again,” Brecel said. “I’m quite relieved. I don’t like the attention, when everyone says: ‘Oh, it’s the world champion.’ It’s not my thing.”
TENNIS
Rybakina ousts Swiatek
Elena Rybakina on Saturday ended defending champion Iga Swiatek’s 10-match winning streak in Stuttgart to reach the final of the clay-court tournament. Fourth seed Rybakina came through their semi-final clash 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, stunning the Polish world No. 1 who had captured the past two titles at the German event. Rybakina is to face Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk for the title. Winners of the Stuttgart tournament, sponsored by German automobile company Porsche, receive a car, but Rybakina said the prize would be of little use. “I actually don’t have a driver’s license,” she said.
ATHLETICS
Duplantis breaks own record
Sweden’s Armand “Mondo” Duplantis on Saturday opened his outdoor season in Olympic year in stunning fashion as he bettered his own pole vault world record at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting. Duplantis, the reigning Olympic, two-time world and European champion, fired out a warning to any potential rivals at this summer’s Paris Games by sailing over 6.24m at his first attempt at the Egret Stadium to improve by 1cm his previous best set in Eugene last year. The US-born 24-year-old entered the competition at 5.62m, clearing 5.82m and 6m before setting the new world record — his eighth in the discipline, each by 1cm since first breaking the record in February 2020 in Torun, Poland. “For me to jump a world record I need everything to be in the right place,” said Duplantis, hailing no winds and great energy from the crowd. “Everything added up to what I needed for me to jump high today,” he added.
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
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
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