Three-times defending champion Iga Swiatek was bundled out of the Qatar Open by Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, who beat the Polish second seed 6-3, 6-1 in the semi-finals on Friday to set up a final showdown with American Amanda Anisimova.
The 23-year-old five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek, who on Thursday became the player with the longest winning run at the tournament with 15 straight victories, looked a shadow of her usual self as she went down to world No. 37 Ostapenko.
Meanwhile, 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko continued her commanding record over Swiatek and now leads the Pole 5-0 in head-to-head.
Photo: AFP
Ostapenko, 27, got off to a confident start by winning the opening two games before taking a 4-2 lead en route to taking the first set.
She produced an utterly dominant display in the second set to race to a 4-0 lead before wrapping up the win in just a little more than an hour.
“I was pretty confident that I will win against her. We played a lot of matches and I know how to play her. I’m really happy with how I’m handling my emotions this week. Just so happy to be in the final,” Ostapenko said.
Ostapenko, who had said the partisan fans at the tournament were disrespectful for jeering her throughout her quarter-final match as she eased to a straight-sets win over Tunisian Ons Jabeur, celebrated her win over Swiatek by looking at the crowd.
World No. 2 Swiatek threw her racket mid-way through the second set as her woes against Ostapenko continued.
In the second semi-final, world No. 41 Anisimova stormed past Russian world No. 26 Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-3 in one hour and 30 minutes to reach her second WTA 1000 final.
College basketballer Kaitlyn Chen has become the first female player of Taiwanese descent to be drafted by a WNBA team, after the Golden State Valkyries selected her in the third and final round of the league’s draft on Monday. Chen, a point guard who played her first three seasons in college for Princeton University, transferred to the University of Connecticut (UConn) for her final season, which culminated in a national championship earlier this month. While at Princeton, Chen was named the Ivy League tournament’s most outstanding player three times from 2022 to last year. Prior to the draft, ESPN described Chen as
Robinson Cano spent 17 seasons playing in the MLB in front of all kinds of baseball fans, but he said there is something special about his stint with the Mexican Baseball League’s Diablos Rojos. He is not alone. The league last week opened its 100th season, aiming to keep an impressive growth in attendance that began after the national team’s surprise run at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, and is already surpassing some first-division soccer clubs. After finishing third in the 2023 tournament, many casual fans, some of them soccer enthusiasts disappointed after Mexico were eliminated in the first round in the 2022
Arne Slot has denied that Darwin Nunez was dropped from Liverpool’s win against West Ham because of a training-ground row with a member of his coaching staff. The Liverpool head coach on Sunday last week said that Nunez was absent from the 2-1 victory at Anfield, having felt unwell during training the day before, although the striker sat behind the substitutes throughout the game. Speculation has been rife that the Uruguay international, whom Slot criticized for his work rate against Wolves and Aston Villa in February, was left out for disciplinary reasons. Asked on Friday to clarify the situation, Slot said: “He
In-form teenager Mirra Andreeva on Thursday crashed out of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, after going down in straight sets to fellow Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova in the last 16. World No. 7 Andreeva, who already has two titles under her belt this season, lost 6-3, 6-2 against the 22nd-ranked Alexandrova in just over an hour. The 17-year-old Andreeva had defeated her elder sister Erika in the previous round on Wednesday, but Alexandrova quickly took control as she claimed her fourth win over a top-10 player this season. The 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva in February became the youngest winner of a WTA
RSS