Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/04/02
By: Lee Chin-wei, Charles Kang, Lee Hsin-Yin

New Delhi, April 2 (CNA) Taiwanese badminton star Chou Tien-chen (周天成) lost to the world’s fourth-ranked Viktor Axelsen of Denmark 21-13, 21-10 in the men’s singles final of the Yonex Sunrise India Open 2017 on Sunday.

Axelsen has been dominating over the world No. 9 Chou throughout the 36-minute game with a partisan crowd backing the Dane, even though Taiwan’s representative to India Tien Chung-kwang and his wife were cheering up for their follow citizen.

Following the match, Chou told CNA that Axelsen had an advantage of speed over him, giving him pressure in many ways. “I will review every aspects of the game to improve myself and get ready for the next game,” he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 02, 2017
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

The Lamigo Monkeys grabbed their third win of the season, defeating the Fubon

Guardians 9-5 to stay atop the CPBL table, while the Uni-President Lions picked up their second victory, thrashing the Brothers Baseball Club 9-1 in yesterday’s games.

First baseman Chen “My Show” Chun-shou carried the Monkeys with a two-run homer to support US pitcher Zack Segovia, who notched his first win of the season.

Segovia — who has MLB experience with the Philadelphia Phillies and the Washington Nationals — gave up five runs on 10 hits through seven innings to make his record this season 1-1, while Fubon starter Huang Yi-chih was tagged with the loss, yielding eight runs on eight hits through six innings.    [FULL  STORY]

Fans cried out: not funny!

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/04/01
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – April 1st is better known as Fools’ Day and traditionally some

mischievous news stories are spread before or on this day, but some of them went way too far. Taiwanese-born pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) has become the victim of a prank that enraged his fans, saying the joke is in bad taste and “not funny at all.”

Popular local sports website Sports Vision (運動視界) cited a foreign news story to give a Chinese-language report that says Wang has won a one-year deal with San Diego Padres, which was quickly denied by Wang’s manager. The news piece cited by Sports Vision was later found to be a fake one generated by a fake-news creator “clone zone,” the web tool that allows users to copy the layout of popular news sites while changing their content as a hoax. In this case, the fake news about Wang was created in the style of the Score, a popular sports news publisher. A Sports Vision editor was obviously fooled.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/04/01 21:14:44
By: Chen Ching-fang and Lilian Wu

Taipei, April 1 (CNA) Taiwanese badminton star Chou Tien-chen (周天成) advanced to

the men’s singles final of the Yonex Sunrise India Open 2017 in New Delhi on Saturday, continuing his strong start to 2017.

Chou, ranked ninth in the world, upended world No. 26 Anders Antonsen of Denmark 21-17, 21-14 in 46 minutes to earn a berth in Sunday’s final against another Dane, fourth-ranked Viktor Axelsen.

Axelsen, who has lost in the finals of the event the past two years, quickly dispatched of Ng Ka Long (伍家朗) of Hong Kong 21-12, 21-13 in 29 minutes in his semifinal match.

“Chou is playing well; I have to be ready,” Axelsen said after his match.
[FULL  STORY]

NADAL FINAL:Nick Kyrgios pushed Roger Federer all the way with three tiebreakers, while Fabio Fognini was less of a hurdle for Rafael Nadal, who won in straight sets

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 02, 2017
By: Dave Carroll / Staff reporter, with Reuters

Chan Yung-jan and Martina Hingis on Friday failed in their attempt to complete a

“Sunshine double” in California and Florida as third seeds Sania Mirza and Barbora Strycova rallied from a set down to oust the Taiwanese-Swiss fifth seeds in the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Miami Open.

The Indian-Czech duo avenged their quarter-final defeat in Indian Wells to advance to the final with a 6-7 (6/8), 6-1, 10-4 victory in 1 hour, 28 minutes and tie their career record at 1-1.

Mirza and Strycova saved five of seven break points and converted four of six, winning 75 of the 139 points contested to advance to to today’s final against Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Xu Yifan of China, who edged fourth seeds Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic and Peng Shuai of China 7-5, 5-7, 10-7 in the earlier semi-final.

In the men’s singles, Roger Federer needed more than three hours to outlast Nick Kyrgios 7-6 (11/9), 6-7 (11/9), 7-6 (7/5) in a pulsating semi-final to set up another mouthwatering final clash with Rafael Nadal.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: March 31, 2017

The Tour de Taiwan, the nation’s premier professional cycling race, wrapped up March

30 in the southern county of Pingtung, with Spain’s Benjamin Prades claiming first place in the Union Cycliste Internationale Asia Tour event.

A total of 105 cyclists from 30 countries and territories representing 21 teams—including five Taiwan challengers racing for two local outfits—battled it out over the 682-kilometer competition. The five-stage race spanned urban and scenic routes in the northern cities of Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan, and the central county of Nantou before concluding in Pingtung.

Racing for Team Ukyo of Japan, Prades took home the yellow jersey as winner of the General classification with an overall time of 16:05:19. He also claimed the polka dot jersey as the best rider in the Mountains classification.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/31
By: Chen Wei-ting and Ko Lin

Taipei, March 31 (CNA) Former National Basketball Association (NBA) star Shawn Marion met with fans in Taipei on Friday after having visited several colleges in Kaohsiung and Taichung earlier this week.

Marion, who had arrived in Taiwan late Sunday, was invited to meet with 10 lucky China Airlines (CAL) customers who purchased tickets between Fecampaign.

He was also joined by five former players from the airline’s female basketball team at the promotional event held at the company’s indoor court in Taipei and hosted by CAL Chairman Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒).

The CAL executive tried a few three-point shots under the guidance of the former NBA star, who in turn received a special “Matrix” edition model of CAL’s new A350 passenger aircraft.    [FULL  STORY]

PRACTICE AND SHOPPING:The Swiss player said the duo had two weeks to practice, while there was time for cheesecake and shopping, helping their communication

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 31, 2017
By: Dave Carroll / Staff reporter, with AP, KEY BISCAYNE, Florida

Chan Yung-jan and Martina Hingis took another step closer to an Indian Wells-Miami

“Sunshine double” by advancing to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles on Wednesday, while Venus Williams ousted top seed Angelique Kerber in the quarter-finals of the singles in Key Biscayne, Florida.

Fifth seeds Chan and Hingis took 72 minutes to see off the challenge of Andreja Klepac and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-4, 6-2, their third straight victory over the Slovenian-Spanish pairing after wins in Doha and Indian Wells.

The Taiwanese-Swiss duo saved two of five break points and converted six of 13 to advance to a semi-final against third seeds Sania Mirza of India and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 29, 2017
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

The Dacin Tigers took an commanding 3-0 lead in the SBL championship series at the

Sinjhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City yesterday by winning Game 3 80-72 against the Yulon Luxgen Dinos on key contributions in the fourth quarter from forward Huang Chen and center Sim Bhullar.

Huang drained three three-pointers in the final 10 minutes, while “Great Wall of India” Bhullar made his dominating presence felt under the basket with key rebounds and blocks.

The Tigers continued their running attack and went ahead by 34-28 at halftime, before piling on the three-pointers to lead 56-48 by end of the third quarter.

The Dinos fell as many as 13 points behind, but the game livened up in the final minutes when they found their scoring touch to go on a 11-1 run against the Tigers.

With the fans cheering on their team, the Dinos narrowed the gap to three points twice, before the teams traded three-pointers to make it 75-72 with three minutes to go.

However, in the battle between the big imported centers, Bhullar had the edge over Herve Lamizana of the Ivory Coast as he tipped in a rebound, then at the other end blocked Lamizana in the paint to stop a scoring run in the dying minutes.

Lamizana was later fouled, but missed both free throws.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/28
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–Applications for participation in a race up Taiwan’s tallest

building will be accepted from noon on Friday, with 3,000 entrants in the individual event and 30 in the group event, organizers said on Tuesday.

The 13th Taipei 101 Run Up competition will take place on May 7, with a purse of nearly NT$1 million (US$33,000) up for grabs, according to the event organizers.

Participants will face the daunting challenge of climbing 2,046 stairs, or 390 meters, to the 91st floor of the building to finish the race.

Australian Paul Crake who clocked 10 minutes, 29 seconds and Austrian Andrea Mayr who finished in 12 minutes, 38 seconds in the inaugural event in 2005 remain the male and female record holders. Therefore, the organizers offer NT$200,000 in prize money to anyone who sets a new record, according to the event organizers.   [FULL  STORY]