Greek spectators frantically waved their blue and white striped flags, stomped their feet, booed and shrieked until they were hoarse Tuesday as their tennis hope, Eleni Daniilidou, beat 15th-seeded Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria in the second round of the Olympic tournament.
Earsplitting screams accompanied the limping Daniilidou as she left Center Court exhausted following her 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
PHOTO: AP
Dormant until Tueaday, the Olympic tennis stadium suddenly erupted when the Greek heroine came from a set down to gain momentum in the second session.
The match resembled more a soccer game than a tennis contest as spectators chanted "Hellas!" the Greek name for Greece nearly nonstop throughout the match.
"The crowd was great," Daniilidou said. "If this match had been in another country, I'm not sure I would have won."
Leading 3-1 in the final set, she continued to inflame the crowd, dropping her racket and punching the air after winning a key point. She nodded her head at the crowd after winning that game.
The drama continued when, up a break at 4-2, Daniilidou suddenly dropped to the ground after apparently straining her left inner thigh muscle while serving. She writhed on the ground until medics rushed to her aid. The crowd cheered and chanted as ice was applied.
The Greek player, who was helped off the court, is scheduled to play French Open champion and third-seeded Anastasia Myskina of Russia on Wedneday.
Daniilidou was the only Greek player to survive the first round.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS