Skip to main content

Jankovic, Wozniacki, Williams reach Doha Tennis semi-finals

Saturday, October 31, 2009 DOHA: Defending champion Venus Williams reached the semi-finals of the WTA hampionships without hitting a ball on Friday as organisers avoided potential embarrassment over the event's scoring system.Williams reached the last four - along with Jelena Jankovic and Caroline Wozniacki - despite losing two of her three round-robin group matches.The American was assured of joining sister Serena in the semi-finals when Svetlana Kuznetsova defeated Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-2 in the concluding Maroon Group match.On Saturday, Serena will face Wozniacki while Venus tackles Jankovic for places in the final of the 4.55 million dollar tournament.Under a complicated qualifying system, Venus pipped Dementieva for a last four place despite both players having a win apiece and with the Russian having defeated the American when they met on Tuesday.Venus went through having won more sets.In the White Group, Jankovic also made the last four, comfortably defeating US Open runner-up Wozniacki 6-2, 6-2.Wozniacki then faced the possibility of being eliminated from the tournament despite having two wins.However, the blonde Dane was saved when best friend Victoria Azarenka was forced to retire injured against Polish replacement player Agnieszka Radwanska.Azarenka had led 6-4, 5-2 before becoming severely restricted by a right thigh and back injury which needed constant attention.She was eventually forced to quit in floods of tears in an echo of Wozniacki's injury-hit win over Vera Zvonareva the day before.Radwanska, who had in turn replaced an injured Zvonareva and goes home with 200,000 dollars for her day's work, was leading 4-1 in the final set when the Belarussian hobbled away.Jankovic came into her match far fresher than 19-year-old Wozniacki, the world number four.The 24-year-old Serbian had spent just 95 minutes in total on court in two matches after Dinara Safina withdrew through injury from her second tie after only 12 minutes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...

US drones to target Taliban in Afghan war

Friday, July 31, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military plans to use more drone aircraft to target Taliban militants in Afghanistan while focusing less on hunting down Al-Qaeda figures, report said on Thursday.Although defeating the Al-Qaeda terror network remains an overriding goal for Washington, officials now believe the best way to pursue that objective is to ensure stability in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan instead of Al-Qaeda manhunts, the paper said, citing US government and Defense Department officials.It was more important to prevent a slide towards violence and anarchy that could be exploited by Al-Qaeda, which used Afghanistan to stage its attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the officials said."We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," an official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."The shift in priorities for the drone fleet comes despite President Barack Obama's declaration that defeating and dismantling Al-Qaeda ...