Former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic crashed out of the Pan Pacific Open yesterday but top seed Jelena Jankovic and Beijing Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva marched on.
Ivanovic, the second seed who reached the top of the rankings after winning her first Grand Slam at Roland Garros, fought back from losing the opening set against Nadia Petrova to take the second and level the match.
But she lost her service in the first game of the final set and never recovered, falling to the Russian 6-1, 1-6, 6-2.
Her Serbian compatriot Jankovic and Russian third seed Dementieva safely made the quarter-finals, joining Dinara Safina.
Jankovic, aiming to regain the No. 1 ranking she held for just one week during the Olympics, breezed past Flavia Pennetta of Italy 6-2, 6-1, while Dementieva whipped Alize Cornet of France 6-0, 6-3.
The unseeded Petrova, ranked 20, used her powerful groundstrokes and charged hard to the net on any short balls as she dismantled Ivanovic’s game.
When she fired a forehand winner on her advantage point to break Ivanovic for a second time in the final set, it was always going to be her day.
However Ivanovic appeared satisfied as she “really enjoyed my time. I’m just very happy to have an opportunity to get in the matches again.”
“Every set was pretty one way,” she said.
“I started the first game of the first set, it was really important and she broke me to win. It was very hard for me to break her. I tried to dominate but I was making too many mistakes,” Ivanovic said.
“In the second set, I tried to change a little bit with more spin and it worked really well, so I tried to do the same in the third set. But in the first two games I was holding back and she just went for her shots,” she said.
Dementieva earned a place in the lucrative season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar from Nov. 4 to Nov. 9 with her win yesterday.
She joins Jankovic, Serena Williams, Safina and Ivanovic in qualifying for the elite US$4.45 million event.
“This is great that I’m going to be there, because this year I was fighting to get into the tournament. It’s very nice, I’m very excited about Doha,” said Dementieva, ranked fourth in the world.
In other matches, sixth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland defeated Marion Bartoli of France 6-2, 6-3, while fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia powered past Japan’s Ayumi Morita 6-1, 6-1.
More than 180 years of horse racing came to an end in Singapore on Saturday, as the Singapore Turf Club hosted its final race day before its track is handed back to the Singaporean government to provide land for new homes. Under an overcast sky, the air-conditioned VIP boxes were full of enthusiasts, socialites and expats, while the grounds and betting halls below hosted mostly older-generation punters. The sun broke through for the last race, the last-ever Grand Singapore Gold Cup. The winner, South African jockey Muzi Yeni, echoed a feeling of loss shared by many on the day. “I’d
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
PREDICTION: Last week, when Yu’s father made a wrong turn to the former champions’ parking lot, he said that his son could park there after this year With back-to-back birdies on the 18th hole, Kevin Yu fulfilled his driving range-owning dad’s prediction that he would win the Sanderson Farms Championship and become Taiwan’s third golfer to claim a US PGA Tour title. The Taoyuan-born 26-year-old, who represented Taiwan in the Olympic golf at Paris, saw off Californian Beau Hossler in a playoff at the Country Club of Jackson, Mississippi, on Sunday. Having drained a 15-foot putt to claw his way into the playoff, Yu rolled in from five feet on the first extra hole, ensuring he joined Chen Tze-chung (LA Open in 1987) and Pan Cheng-tsung (RBC
LeBron James and eldest son Bronny James claimed a piece of NBA history on Sunday after making their long-awaited first appearance alongside each other for the Los Angeles Lakers. The duo appeared together at the start of the second quarter in the Lakers’ 118-114 preseason defeat to the Phoenix Suns in Palm Desert, east of Los Angeles. While LeBron James impressed with 19 points in just 16 minutes and 20 seconds on court before sitting out the second half, Bronny found the going harder with zero points in just over 13 minutes on court. The younger James attempted just one