Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan was one of a dozen tennis players who were handed wildcards into the Olympics on Monday.
Japan’s Kei Nishikori and Kevin Anderson of South Africa, both surprise winners on the tour this year, also received wildcards.
Defending Olympic champion Nicolas Massu of Chile has been successful in his campaign to take part in the tournament despite his world ranking having slumped to 93.
Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman, 35, who will retire at the end of the year, Belarus’ Max Mirnyi and China’s Peng Sun were also handed wildcards.
Chan, Taiwan’s top-ranked singles player, was eliminated by Dinara Safina of Russia in the first round at Wimbledon this year.
Japanese teenager Nishikori won the title in Delray Beach, while Anderson was the Las Vegas winner.
In the women’s singles, invitations also went to Alicia Molik of Australia, Maria Koryttseva of Ukraine, Japan’s Ayumi Morita, Nuria Llagostera-Vives of Spain and Tunisia’s Selima Sfar.
“Each of the players who have been awarded an ITF [International Tennis Federation] Place brings special qualities to the field for the 2008 Olympic Tennis Event,” ITF president Francesco Ricci Bitti said.
“Some of the players are young competitors from under-represented parts of the world while others are former medallists or long-standing participants in their country’s Davis Cup and Fed Cup efforts,” Bitti said.
Molik was thrilled by her inclusion in the field.
“This is probably the best news I’ve had since 2004,” Molik said. “I have played in two Olympics and I have to say they’re the absolute highlight of my career. Nothing comes close to playing in the Olympics, representing your country. It is the most amazing experience any individual can have. It was always a childhood dream of mine.”
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
The Major League Baseball World Series trophy is headed to Los Angeles, but the party is extending all the way to Japan. People milled around local train stations yesterday morning in Tokyo as newspaper extras were ready to roll off the presses, proclaiming Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as world champions along with their Dodgers teammates after a stirring Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees. The 30-year-old is a national hero in Japan whose face adorns billboards and TV adverts all over the country. Ohtani this year became the first player in history to hit 50 home runs and
RSS