Crowd favorite Maria Sharapova overcame a second-set loss of form to beat Agnieszka Radwanska yesterday and set up a final against Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic in the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament.
The Russian held her composure to storm back from 0-2 down in the final set to complete a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 victory over the Pole.
Earlier in the day Jankovic overcame an injury scare to beat Li Na of China 6-4, 6-3.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Sharapova said of her meeting with Jankovic in the final.
Sharapova, ranked 25th in the world after her shoulder injury lay-off, suffered a mid-match slump as she overhit her power-packed strokes and lost all of her service games in the second set.
After Radwanska squared the match at one-set all, the Russian then found herself 0-2 down in the final set but persisted in attacking Radwanska’s second serve to earn return winners on a break point in the fourth and eighth games.
Despite dropping two match points in the ninth, Sharapova finished off the match with another return winner on her fifth match point.
Jankovic needed treatment on her right arm at the beginning of the fourth game at 1-2 down.
But the Serbian showed no ill-effects to hit two consecutive winners from the baseline and break back on a Li backhand error which went wide at 15-40 to tie the score 2-2.
Jankovic added another break in the eighth game and, although she needed to save one break point in the following game, calmly served out for the match watching Li’s backhand service return go long.
■MALAYSIAN OPEN
AFP, KUALA LUMPUR
Nikolay Davydenko brushed aside a challenge from Gael Monfils yesterday to reach the semi-finals of the Malaysian Open, setting up a clash with French Open finalist Robin Soderling.
Davydenko, the top seed beat the Frenchman 6-3, 6-3, with Monfils dropping his serve four times during the match.
Third seed Soderling continued his easy passage with a third consecutive victory in straight sets as he crushed Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych 6-2, 6-2.
In the other quarter-finals Fernando Gonzalez beat Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-4 while Fernando Verdasco beat Richard Gasquet 7-5, 6-4.
■THAILAND OPEN
REUTERS, BANGKOK
Second seed Gilles Simon booked his place in the semi-finals of the Thailand Open after a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over hard-hitting Russian Evgeny Korolev yesterday.
Simon will meet Austrian Juergen Melzer in the semis after he overpowered Andreas Beck in a comfortable 6-4, 6-2 win.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later