Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan and Martina Hingis survived a huge scare to keep their bid for back-to-back doubles titles on track at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia on Wednesday, while top seed Angelique Kerber was not so fortunate, losing her opening match at the Foro Italico to Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit.
Second seeds Chan and Hingis rallied from a set down against Nao Hibino of Japan and Alicja Rosolska of Poland to edge a tight second-round contest 4-6, 7-5, 11-9 in 1 hour, 38 minutes.
The Taiwanese-Swiss duo saved three of six break points and converted three of six, winning 75 of the 144 points contested to advance to the quarter-finals in Rome.
Photo taken from Facebook
The second seeds are looking for a third title as a pairing and the second in a week after they triumphed at the Mutua Madrid Open on Saturday.
In the women’s singles, world No. 1 Kerber fell to a shock 6-4, 6-0 loss to Kontaveit.
Kerber joined Andy Murray, the men’s world No. 1, on the sidelines after Murray’s loss to Fabio Fognini on Tuesday.
“Everybody knows I’m not a clay-court specialist,” Kerber said. “I was not playing good last year as well. I had a great year, but I mean, these few weeks I was not playing good and this year it’s the same.”
In the men’s singles, Rafael Nadal hardly had to get his socks dirty extending his winning streak to 16 matches.
Back to being the best player on the ATP Tour over the past month, Nadal advanced from his opening match when Nicolas Almagro retired in the first set with an apparent injury.
Nadal has won consecutive clay-court tournaments in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Madrid.
Also on Wednesday, Olympic silver medalist Juan Martin del Potro defeated Britain’s Kyle Edmund 7-5, 6-4; fifth seed Milos Raonic defeated German veteran Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-3; and 16th seed Alexander Zverev beat Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-4 and was due to face Italian Fabio Fognini.
“The stadium will be very loud for him. I’m very sure about that,” Zverev said of Fognini. “It’s going to be a fun day, a fun atmosphere and great match.”
Nadal was to face 13th seed Jack Sock, who beat Jiri Vesely 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7/1) after more than two-and-a-half hours.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS