Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/10/03
By: Lee Yu-cheng and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Oct. 3 (CNA) Taiwan’s Chuang Chih-yuan (莊智淵) lost to Fan Zhendong (樊振東)

of China 2-4 Saturday in his semifinal match in the men’s singles at the 2015 ITTF Asian Table Tennis Championships in Pattaya, Thailand.

Chuang, ranked 11th in the world in the latest International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) stats, was defeated by world No. 3 Fan 7-11, 11-7, 10-12, 11-9, 7-11, 1-11.

The veteran Taiwanese, having lost all four of his head-to-head meetings with Fan, still was guaranteed a tied bronze medal by making it to the semifinals.

In total, Taiwan won two medals at the competition, as Chuang and his four teammates had already won bronze in the men’s team event Sept. 28.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/09/28
By: Lee Chin-wei and Romulo Huang

Taipei, Sept. 28 (CNA) Taiwan won the 2015 Dafabet World Cup of Pool held in London,

beating England B 10-8 in the race to 10 final.

Taiwan was represented by Ko Pin-yi (柯秉逸) and Chang Yu-lung (張玉龍) in the competition that featured 32 two-man teams from around the world.

The fourth-seeded Taiwanese team came from 5-1 and 7-4 down to down the 15th-seeded team of Mark Gray and Daryl Peach and win the country’s first Dafabet World Cup of Pool.

Taiwanese teams had finished as semifinalists four times in the past, but this year Ko and Chang defeated defending champions England A 9-6 in the semifinal to reach the finals for the first time.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 28, 2015
By: Paul Huang  /  Contributing reporter

The struggling EDA Rhinos bounced back from back-to-back blowout losses to the

Uni-President Lions with a 5-2 triumph in the weekend’s finale at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Kaohsiung last night to avoid being swept by the Cats at home.

The win also nipped a five-game slide for the Rhinos, who properly celebrated slugger Kao Kuo-hui’s record-extending 35th homer of the season one day after he had broken the eight-year-old mark for the most homers in a season (33) set by the Lions’ Tilson Brito in 2007.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling and tremendous honor to be able surpass a great player like [Tilson Brito],” Kao said after the game.

The 30-year-old soft-spoken slugger has his eyes on the 40-homer plateau with 11 games remaining in the regular season.

Hu Chin-lung’s two-run double capped a three-run second inning for the Rhinos, who greeted Lions starter Wang Ching-ming with three extra-base hits (all doubles) in the inning to set the tone early in the game.     [FULL  STORY]

Hong Kong Rugby Football Union

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 27, 2015

Taiwan suffered a pair of thrashings at the Asian Rugby Sevens Series leg in Thailand

yesterday, as the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union announced at its International Olympic Day that it is to host the Asia Rugby Sevens Qualifiers on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8.

Taiwan were soundly beaten in Bangkok at first by Hong Kong, 34-0, and then by Sri Lanka, 36-0.

Taiwan are to play hosts Thailand in first Bowl semi-final at 1:50pm Taiwan time today.

The union said at Olympic House — the headquarters of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong — that for the women, the qualifiers for next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro would be the first in a two-tournament qualification series, with the second to be held in Tokyo later in November, while the men’s winner in Hong Kong will claim Asia’s sole automatic slot among 12 in Brazil, where rugby Sevens is to make its debut.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 27, 2015
By: Paul Huang  /  Contributing reporter

The Uni-President Lions roughed up the EDA Rhinos 16-5 at Kaohsiung’s Cheng Ching

Lake Baseball Stadium last night, moving into double digits for the second straight game.

The win not gave the Cats a rare series triumph and a potential sweep with a victory this afternoon, but also brought them out of the cellar as the Rhinos slipped to last in the standings.

Homers by Chen Yung-chi and Chou Guan led a 17-hit Lions attack, with the former bringing home three in the opening frame and the latter leading off what turned out to be a six-run seventh.

The Lions were not the only ones hitting long, as Rhinos slugger Kao Kuo-hui also went deep for his 34th home run of the year to break the record for most homers in a single season (33) set by the Lions’ Tilson Brito in 2007.

With his offense spotting him nine runs through the third, Lions starter Chiang Cheng-yen cruised through the contest with relative ease, allowing three runs on four hits over six innings of work to pick up the win and improve his season mark to 6-2.     [FULL  STORY]

SINGLES FINAL:Belinda Bencic faces Agnieszka Radwanska today, after the Swiss defeated Caroline Wozniacki and the Pole downed Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 27, 2015
By: Dave Carroll  /  Staff reporter, with Reuters, TOKYO

The Chan sisters’ bid for back-to-back doubles titles in Tokyo ended in a 7-5, 6-1 defeat to Spanish duo Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro in the Toray Pan Pacific Open final yesterday.

Second seeds Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan, who lifted the Japan Open title the previous Saturday, converted two of five break points in the first set, but their third-seeded opponents converted three of seven to edge a tight opener.

The Taiwanese sisters then failed to create a single break point in the second set as the Spanish pairing wrapped up the victory in 1 hour, 13 minutes on Center Court at the Ariake Coliseum.

Muguruza and Suarez Navarro won 65 of the 113 points contested to claim the title and rise to eighth in the Road to Singapore rankings, while the Taiwanese duo are 10th.     [FULL  STORY]