Australian Open champ Maria Sharapova reached her first claycourt final on Saturday after 16th seeded American Lindsay Davenport withdrew from their scheduled match due to illness.
Sharapova was 0-3 career in claycourt semi-finals prior to the walkover win at Amelia Island.
The top seed was chasing her third title of the year and the 19th of her career yesterday when she was due to face Dominika Cibulkova.
“I feel great; it’s amazing,” Cibulkova said. “I beat some great players here this week and am now in the final of Amelia Island — I still can’t believe it. I’m really looking forward to the final.”
It was a disappointing end to a promising tournament for Davenport, who was a win away from reaching her fifth career final at this Tier II event.
BACK TO BACK TITLES
The 31-year-old American had won 14 straight matches here, having gone 10-0 in winning back-to-back titles from 2004-05. She also won in 1997 and was runner-up in 2003.
“I am very disappointed to not be able to take to the court today,” Davenport said.
“Right after my quarter-final victory I started feeling sick while receiving treatment. I returned to my hotel where the tournament doctor came to see me,” she said. “Unfortunately I was running a fever and had aches, pains and a headache. Those symptoms have worstened today.”
In a battle of unseeded 18-year-olds in the other semi-final, Cibulkova emerged with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory over Alize Cornet.
The 34th-ranked Slovak was due to appear in her maiden WTA Tour final yesterday where she was to face Sharapova for the first time.
IMPRESSIVE RUN
Cibulkova has made an impressive run through the draw with upsets of No. 2 seed Anna Chakvetadze, 11th-seeded Amelie Mauresmo and No. 14 Victoria Azarenka.
Cornet also had posted her share of surprises here with wins over No. 9 Sybille Bammer and 13th-ranked Virginie Razzano, but was denied what would have been her first Tier II final appearance.
The Frenchwoman played in her first championship match at the Tier III Acapulco event last month, finishing as runner-up to Flavia Pennetta.
When Joan Monfort took photographs of Lionel Messi with a baby for a charity calendar almost 17 years ago, he knew the long-haired young man would make it big in soccer. He could not have imagined the little boy would as well. The baby in the photos — which have gone viral — was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish wunderkind, who at 16 is showing such promise that he is already being compared with the greats. He is the youngest person to have played for Spain and the youngest to compete in the European Championship. The long-forgotten photo from 2007
Taiwanese tennis ace Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jan Zielinski of Poland on Friday advanced to the mixed doubles final at Wimbledon, just one step away from clinching their first mixed doubles title at the tournament. Hsieh and Zielinski, who won the Australian Open title earlier this year and who had reached the semi-finals at the French Open, battled past second seeds Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand 7-6, (7/0), 6-3. In the first set, the Taiwanese-Polish duo saved a set point, pushing the set into a tiebreaker. They clinched the set by winning the tiebreaker with seven straight points. The duo
CHALLENGE SET: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Poland’s Jan Zielinski are to play against New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe in the mixed doubles semi-finals Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and her Polish partner, Jan Zielinski, on Thursday advanced to the mixed doubles semi-final at Wimbledon in a tight battle that ended in a super tiebreaker. The seventh-seeded duo, who won the Australian Open mixed doubles title earlier this year and reached the semi-finals of the French Open, needed 125 minutes to beat Britain’s Jamie Murray and the US’ Taylor Townsend 7-6, 6-7 (10-5). Hsieh and Zielinski took the first set with a 7-2 win in the tiebreaker and seemed poised to close out the match in the second set tiebreaker when they took a 4-0 lead. With the Taiwan-Poland
Modern pentathlon has obstacles ahead as it bids farewell to the horse at the Paris Olympics and prepares for a future more familiar to fans of Ninja Warrior and Tough Mudder. The blend of fencing, freestyle swimming, show jumping, pistol shooting and cross-country running caused a commotion at the 2021 Tokyo Games when a German coach struck a horse that refused a fence. The sport was dropped from the initial list for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, but reinstated after the governing Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), led by 77-year-old German Klaus Schormann, decided the equestrian element would be replaced by