TENNIS
Vandeweghe wins Ricoh
Coco Vandeweghe on Sunday won her second Ricoh Open title by beating Kristina Mladenovic 7-5, 7-5 in a final blighted by long rain delays. Vandeweghe also won the grass-court tournament in 2014 — her only other title on the tour. The match was first suspended after five games and again after the sixth-seeded Vandeweghe had won the first set. Vandeweghe had seven aces and saved two of three break points. Third-seeded Mladenovic was in her first final of the year. The men’s final between Nicolas Mahut and Gilles Muller was suspended because of rain after Mahut had won the first set 6-4. The final was scheduled to be continued yesterday.
TENNIS
Rain delays Mercedes final
Heavy rain has forced organizers to suspend the Mercedes Cup final between Dominic Thiem and Philipp Kohlschreiber. The match, already an hour late to start, was halted for about five hours on Sunday. It was then finally suspended after another delay, with the two tied 6-6 and Kohlschreiber up 3-2 in the tiebreaker. Workers tried to dry the slippery court with hot-air blowers, but the rain kept returning to make it impossible to play. The match was scheduled to be completed yesterday.
TENNIS
Pliskova secures Aegon title
Top seed Karolina Pliskova on Sunday saved six set points to take the first set on a nail-biting tiebreaker on her way to clinching the Aegon Open title. The Czech made it a fifth WTA crown — but a first on grass — with the hard-fought 7-6 (10/8), 7-5 victory over Alison Riske of the US. Pliskova’s first title this year sets her up perfectly for Wimbledon, which begins in two weeks. The world No. 17 also won titles in Prague last year, Seoul and Linz in 2014 and Kuala Lumpur in 2013.
GOLF
China’s Wu wins Lyoness
China’s Wu Ashun rallied to win the Lyoness Open for his second European Tour victory, improving his chances of playing in the Rio Olympics. Wu, 30, closed with a three-under 69 for a one-stroke victory over Spain’s Adrian Otaegui. The Volvo China Open winner last year, Wu finished at 13-under 275 at Diamond Country Club.
OLYMPICS
Bolt ready to give up medal
World and Olympic sprint king Usain Bolt said he was “heartbroken,” but prepared to give up his 4x100m relay gold from the 2008 Beijing Games after teammate Nesta Carter reportedly tested positive for a banned substance. “It’s heartbreaking, for years you’ve worked hard to accumulate gold medals and you work hard to be a champion, so it’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of those things,” Bolt told newspaper the Gleaner on Sunday. “Things happen in life, if it’s confirmed or whatever and I need to give back my gold medal, it’s not a problem to me.” A retest of Carter’s A sample from Beijing found traces of methylhexaneamine, the newspaper said, placing one of Bolt’s six gold medals in jeopardy. The result of retests of Carter’s B sample is not yet officially known. If Carter is subjected to doping sanctions, it could mean Bolt stands to lose his relay gold. Carter, 30, ran the first leg for Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team in Beijing, which also included Michael Frater, Asafa Powell and superstar Bolt. The team took gold in what was then a new world record of 37.10 seconds, ahead of Trinidad and Tobago and Japan.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier