Top seed Alexander Zverev on Wednesday shrugged off a knee issue to ease past Jesper de Jong in straight sets and into the last 16 at his home tournament in Hamburg.
The defending champion hurt his left knee in a fall at Wimbledon, but advanced 6-2, 6-2 past 114th-ranked Dutchman De Jong to set up a meeting with France’s Hugo Gaston in the pre-Olympic clay-court tournament.
“I was still unsure this morning if I was going to play or not and during the warm-up I was in quite a lot of pain, but somehow when I step on this court it disappears a little bit when the adrenaline gets going,” the German world No. 4 said.
Photo: AFP
“I have an injury where I know where I stand and it will take time to heal. It won’t heal in the next few days, it will take weeks and it’s up to me if I am going to play like that or not,” he added.
Zverev, who reached the fourth round on grass at Wimbledon, claimed his 41st match win of the season.
Third seed Sebastian Baez and fourth seed Francisco Cerundolo, both from Argentina, also reached the quarter-finals, along with Italy’s Luciano Darderi and Spaniard Pedro Martinez.
PALERMO LADIES OPEN
Staff writer with AP, PALERMO, Italy
Taiwan’s Latisha Chan and Zhang Shuai of China on Wednesday won their opening match at the Palermo Ladies Open in Italy.
The Taiwanese-Chinese pair defeated Russian duo Sofya Lansere and Anastasia Tikhonova 6-0, 6-4 to advance to the quarter-finals. They were to play Kimberley Zimmermann and Camilla Rosatello after press time last night at the Country Time Club.
The Italian-Belgian pair eliminated Maria Carle and Julia Riera of Argentina 6-4, 6-4 to set up the clash.
SWEDISH OPEN
AFP, BASTAD, Sweden
Rafael Nadal and Casper Ruud on Wednesday saved a match point in the deciding set tie break to reach the semi-finals of the doubles in Bastad, hours after the Norwegian was knocked out of the singles.
Nadal and Ruud squeezed past France’s Theo Arribage and Roman Safiullin of Russia 6-4, 3-6 (12/10) to advance to the last four, winning the final three points of the match after being on the brink of defeat.
“I think we had some fun. It was an emotional match at the end, a good level of tennis against two good players,” said Nadal, who is also competing in the singles tournament. “We enjoy it, the crowd was amazing. Full crowd in a doubles match, that’s fantastic. Just enjoying every single day here.”
Nadal returned to competition for the first time this week since his early French Open exit.
In the singles, Ruud’s Olympic preparations took a hit when he lost 6-3, 6-3 to Thiago Monteiro in the second round earlier on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, world No. 121 Thiago Tirante of Argentina pulled off the biggest win of his career when he defeated top seed and defending champion Andrey Rublev 7-6 (7/5), 3-6, 6-4.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
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
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
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
RSS