Poland’s world No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska breezed past Spaniard Larra Arruabarrena 6-0, 6-2 in the semi-finals of the Korea Open yesterday to set up a title clash with Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Pavlyuchenkova, seeded third, had a tough outing against former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy, but eventually prevailed in the other semi-final.
In a match that could have gone either way and saw only two breaks in 24 service games, the Russian third seed dug deep against the spirited Italian to win 7-6 (13/11), 7-6 (8/6).
Photo: EPA
She had to save three set points in the first set tie-break and battled back from 3-0 down in the second set breaker to close it out.
Top-seeded Radwanska continued her good form on her Seoul debut, having dropped just 11 games in four matches, and only needed 64 minutes to thrash the Spaniard, ranked 113 in the world.
“It was definitely a very good match. I was playing really good tennis,” Radwanska said, after reaching her fourth final of the year.
“It was really hot out there, but I played my 100 percent throughout the match, so that’s why it was two quick sets,” she said.
In the semi-finals of the women’s doubles Taiwan’s Chan Chin-wei Chan and Xu Yi-fan of China continued their impressive run by defeating third seeds Shuko Aoyama of Japan and Megan Moulton-Levy of the US 7-5, 6-1. The Taiwanese/Chinese duo will face top seeds Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears of the US in today’s final.
Additional reporting by staff writer
GUANGZHOU OPEN
Reuters
China’s wild-card entrant Zhang Shuai won her maiden WTA Tour singles title with a 7-6 (7/1) 6-1 victory over Taiwanese-American qualifier Vania King in the Guangzhou Open final yesterday.
Playing in her first singles final, the 112th-ranked Zhang continued her run of straight-set victories to win the US$500,000 hard-court tournament in front of a delighted home crowd.
After an evenly matched first set, Zhang ran through the second, winning 16 of the last 17 points against the 124th-ranked King.
Zhang became the fifth Chinese player to win a WTA title after Li Na, Zheng Jie, Yan Zi and Sun Tiantian.
In the doubles final top seeds Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Peng Shuai of China defeated King and Kazakshtan’s Galina Voskoboeva, the No. 3 seeds, 6-3, 4-6, 12-10.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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
LONG TIME COMING: With the addition of Marcus Smart, the Washington Wizards finally held a team to under 100 points, the last team this season to do so The Detroit Pistons on Monday won their seventh straight game in the NBA with in-form Cade Cunningham making 32 points and grabbing nine rebounds in a 106-97 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. The Pistons, who are in the playoff position, moved to 32-26, their best record at this stage of a season for 17 years. It was an all-round effort from Detroit with Tobias Harris adding 20 points and Jalen Duren making 19 rebounds along with his 12 points. It was a tight contest until Detroit pulled away late in the third quarter to tie their longest winning streak since the 2014-2015
SIBLING RIVALRY: Marc Marquez was locked in a duel with his little brother, falling behind at one point before recovering for his first season-opening victory since 2014 Six-time world champion Marc Marquez yesterday won the MotoGP season-opening Thailand Grand Prix to complete a dominant debut weekend at his new Ducati Lenovo Team, having also romped to Saturday’s sprint. The Spanish great took the 26-lap grand prix by 1.732 seconds for his 63rd MotoGP victory from younger brother Alex Marquez, who is still seeking a first checkered flag, with Francesco Bagnaia third to complete an all-Ducati podium. It completed a perfect weekend for Marc Marquez, who took pole position, the sprint victory and the grand prix win for a maximum 37 points to open the 22-leg 2025 campaign. He led from
RSS