TENNIS
Swaitek races to quarters
Second-ranked Iga Swiatek dropped only two games and advanced to the quarter-finals of the China Open by thrashing Magda Linette 6-1, 6-1 yesterday. She next faces either ninth-seeded Carolina Garcia or Anhelina Kalinina tomorrow. Swiatek raced into a 5-0 lead in the first set and snuffed out any hope of an unlikely comeback when she forced her fellow Pole to fire a forehand long. The four-time Grand Slam champion then presided over a second-set masterclass, blitzing an exhausted Linette with an unrelenting salvo of mighty groundstrokes to wrap up the match in just over an hour. World No. 4 Jessica Pegula crashed out with a 6-4, 6-2 defeat to Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who faces Liudmila Samsonova in the last eight after the Russian defeated Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 7-5 in a match that took nearly three hours. Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina defeated Russia’s Mirra Andreeva 2-6, 6-4, 6-1. The men’s singles final between Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Russia’s Daniil Medvedev was delayed and was not over as of press time last night.
TENNIS
Polmans hits umpire
Australian Marc Polmans yesterday said he had apologized to the chair umpire after accidentally hitting him in the face with a ball in a Shanghai Masters qualifying match on Tuesday. The world No. 140 was leading Italian Stefano Napolitano after winning the first set when he hit a volley into the net on his second match point. The Australian then hit the ball in anger as it bounced back from the net. His errant hit narrowly missed the ball person before hitting chair umpire Ben Anderson in the face. Anderson was apparently not seriously injured. Polmans was immediately disqualified. “An update from me — the umpire, Ben, has accepted my apology for my actions — he knows it was unintentional and I shanked the ball on the frame in frustration in the heat of the moment,” Polmans wrote on social media platform X yesterday. “We both move on. It was a high pressure situation and I should have reacted better.” Polmans would forfeit all prize money and ranking points picked up during the qualifying tournament. He could still face further punishment from the ATP for the incident.
OLYMPICS
Bedbug sightings spark furor
A rash of bedbug sightings across France is causing paranoia among travelers and becoming a sore spot for the government as Paris prepares to host the Olympics next year. Videos that appear to show the bloodsucking insects crawling over seats on the Paris Metro and a high-speed train have gone viral on social media in the past few weeks, and some Metro passengers posted videos on TikTok vowing to stay standing. Public transport operator RATP, which runs Paris’s subway, trams and buses said in a statement that it had investigated, but “no cases of bedbugs have been confirmed to date.” While it is unclear whether infestations are up significantly, it has become a political issue in France, which is hosting the Rugby World Cup. French Minister Delegate for Transport Clement Beaune was to hold an emergency meeting with public transportation operators yesterday to discuss how to tackle the issue.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
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