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.
Taiwan kept their hopes of advancing to next year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC) alive with a 9-1 victory over South Africa in a qualifier at the Taipei Dome on Saturday, backed by solid pitching. Taiwan last night played against Nicaragua. As of press time, Nicaragua was leading 6-0. Bouncing back from Friday’s struggles on the mound, when Taiwanese pitchers surrendered 15 runs to Spain, Team Taiwan on Saturday kept the visiting team in check, allowing just one run in the bottom of the fourth inning. Starting pitcher Sha Tzu-chen struck out one and allowed no hits, except for a hit-by-pitch over
Taiwan kept its hopes of advancing to the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) alive with a 9-1 victory over South Africa in a qualifier at the Taipei Dome last night, backed by solid pitching. Bouncing back from Friday’s struggles on the mound, when Taiwanese pitchers surrendered 15 runs to Spain, Team Taiwan kept the visiting team in check, allowing just one run in the bottom of the fourth inning. The win was crucial for Taiwan, as a loss would have eliminated the team from contention for the next WBC. Starting pitcher Sha Tzu-chen (沙子宸) struck out one and allowed no hits, except for
Team Taiwan are set to face Spain in a win-or-go-home match tonight for the final berth at the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC), despite losing to Nicaragua 6-0 in the WBC qualifier at the Taipei Dome on Sunday. The home team’s loss on Sunday means Nicaragua finish first in the qualifier round in Taipei with a perfect 3-0 record and advances to next year’s finals. After crushing South Africa 9-1 earlier on Sunday, Spain took second place in the four-team qualifier with a 2-1 record. With a 1-2 record, Taiwan finished third while South Africa placed at the bottom with
Team Taiwan avoided missing the World Baseball Classic (WBC) for the first time by defeating Spain 6-3 in a do-or-die game in Taipei last night. After narrowly escaping a mercy-rule loss to Spain in the WBC Qualifiers opener on Friday last week, the home team — winner of last year's WBSC Premier12 title three months ago — got their revenge against the 2023 European champions at Taipei Dome. "It felt quite different from when we won the Premier12," Taiwan captain Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲) said after the game, recalling the ups and downs the team has experienced over the past few days. Unlike in
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