Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/23
By: Luke Sabatier

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) Top seeds Latisha Chan (詹詠然) of Taiwan and Andrea

Hlavackova of the Czech Republic have been ousted from the Australian Open women’s doubles in a tight match that came down to a third-set tiebreaker.

The Taiwan-Czech duo fell to fifth seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (6) in a quarterfinal match that lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Aside from a letdown in the second set when it was out of reach, Babos and Mladenovic were the more aggressive team on the day when it mattered, banging out 29 winners to their opponents’ 21, but the top seeds still had their opportunities.

Chan and Hlavackova appeared headed for victory after jumping out to a 4-1 lead in the decisive tiebreaker, but quickly found themselves down two match points at 6-4 after a double fault, an unforced error and three winners by their opponents.    [FULL  STORY]

UPSETTING UPSET: Nadal and Cilic battled through four evenly matched sets before a leg injury left the Spaniard wincing, limping and eventually retiring from the match

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 24, 2018
By: Dave Carroll  /  Staff reporter, with AFP, MELBOURNE

Hsieh Su-wei yesterday put her fourth-round singles defeat by Angelique Kerber behind

her to advance to the doubles semi-finals at the Australian Open, while it was the end of the road for fellow Taiwanese Latisha Chan and Chan Hao-ching in the women’s doubles and mixed doubles respectively.

Eighth seeds Hsieh and Peng Shuai cruised to a 6-1, 6-4 victory over fourth-seeded Czech duo Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova in 1 hour, 13 minutes in their women’s doubles quarter-final on Show Court 2 at Melbourne Park.

The former Wimbledon and French Open champions saved four of five break points and converted four of nine, winning 65 of the 113 points contested.

The Taiwanese-Chinese duo hit 12 winners to set up a semi-final against fifth seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France, who survived a second-set meltdown to edge top seeds Latisha Chan and Andrea Sestini Hlavackova 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (8/6) in 2 hours, 20 minutes on Show Court 3.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/22
By: Lung Po-an and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) Taiwanese tennis star Latisha Chan (詹詠然) scored another Grand Slam victory Monday, as she and Andrea Hlavackova defeated her younger sister Chan Hao-ching (詹皓晴) and Katarina Srebotnik to advance to the quarterfinals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open.

On Monday in Melbourne, the top-seeded Latisha Chan and Hlavackova of the Czech Republic won 6-3, 6-2 against the No. 14 seeds to reach the last eight in their first Grand Slam as a team.

On Sunday, the Chan sisters both advanced to the round of 16 in the mixed doubles with their partners.

Meanwhile, another Taiwanese player Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her partner Peng Shuai (彭帥) of China reached the final eight in the women’s doubles.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/22
By: Lee Chin-wei and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) Taiwanese tennis star Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) failed to advance to the final eight of the women’s singles at the Australian Open on Monday, after she lost to former world No. 1 Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-4, 5-7, 2-6.

Kerber, who won both U.S. Open and the Australian Open women’s title in 2016, is the world’s No. 16.

Last Saturday, Hsieh rolled past Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland at the Australian Open to reach the round of 16 in a Grand Slam for the second time.

The Taiwanese tennis star knocked out world No. 3 Garbine Muguruza of Spain in the second round, and followed up with a victory over the Polish former world No. 2.
[FULL  STORY]

The Four Continents contestants see the competition as a warm-up match for the Winter Olympics next month

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/22
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The North Korean figure skatinging duo Ryom Tae-ok and Kim

Ju-sik, who will compete in South Korea’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics next month, arrived in Taiwan on Monday for the International Skating Union (ISU) Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.

Ryom, 18, and Kim, 25, are North Korea’s best-known skaters and have been paired up for three years now. They have risen in standing to be ranked 36th in the world, and have won a handful of competitions, including bronze medals at the 2017 Asian Winter Games.

The pair were the first athletes from North Korea to be qualified for the Winter Olympics, after the ice on between the two Koreas was broken before the 2018 Games. They are now expected to compete in South Korea’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics next month.

The Pyongyang born North Korean skating duo qualified for for the Winter Olympics in September, but missed the deadline to register in October. However, the International Olympic Committee extended the deadline for North Korea’s participation at the Games in Pyeongchang.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/22
By: Lung Po-an and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) Taiwan’s Latisha Chan (詹詠然) has been eliminated from the

mixed doubles at the Australian Open on Monday after having made it through to the quarterfinals of the women’s doubles earlier in the day.

Chan and Jamie Murray of the United Kingdom, who were seeded first in the mixed doubles event even though they were teaming up for the first time, lost to Australians Marc Polmans and Storm Sanders 7-6 (8), 6-4.

Chan and Murray fell behind 5-2 in the first set, but came back to force a tiebreaker and had two set points but were unable to capitalize.

They were broken in the seventh game of the second set, and the Australians clinched their last two service games to take the match and book a spot in the quarterfinals
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/21
By: Lung Po-an and William Yen

Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) Taiwanese tennis star Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her partner

Peng Shuai (彭帥) of China continued their winning streak at the Australian Open Sunday, advancing to the final eight pairs in the women’s doubles.

The Taiwan-China duo, seeded eighth in the first Grand Slam event of the year, defeated 12th-seeded Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and American Raquel Atawo 6-4, 6-2 in 70 minutes in their third-round match.

Hsieh and Peng struggled in the early stages of the match but then warmed up and never looked back, finishing the set 6-4.

The duo then continued to dominate the second set 6-2.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/21
By: Long Po-an and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) Taiwan’s world No. 1 badminton player Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) had

to settle for the silver medal Sunday in the women’s singles final of the 2018 Malaysian Masters after losing to Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand in three sets.

The 23-year-old top-seeded Tai met her defeat with a score of 16-21, 21-14, 22-24, playing with an injured big toe.

Soon after the match kicked off, the two aces got into a fierce battle that saw the scoreboard seesawing until they came to 16-16. After that, though, Tai lost five consecutive points to lose to the world fifth-ranked Ratchanok 16-21 in the first set.

Tai changed her approach as the second set opened. With strong straight smashes, Tai took the lead with a score of 20-12 at one point before conceding a mere two points to her opponent before the set ended at 21-14.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/21
By: Lung Po-an and William Yen

Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) Taiwanese table tennis player Chen Szu-yu (陳思羽) lost to

China’s Sun Yingsha (孫穎莎) 4-1 in the Seamaster 2018 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour Hungarian Open Sunday, just inches away from making it to the women’s singles final.

Chen, currently ranked 16th in the world, powered through the first three rounds of the tournament to face her 17-year-old Chinese opponent.

From the start of the match, Sun was able to gain an advantage by winning three consecutive games, only allowing Chen to fire back and win the fourth game 13-11.

However, Chen was unable to maintain her winning streak and lost the fifth game 7-11, ending her hopes of advancing to the final.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 22, 2018
By: Dave Carroll  /  Staff reporter, with AFP, MELBOURNE

Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday maintained her winning streak at the first Grand Slam

of the season, while the Chan sisters were also victorious in the first round of the mixed doubles at the Australian Open.

Eighth seeds Hsieh and Peng Shuai took just 70 minutes to overcome 12th seeds Raquel Atawo of the US and Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany 6-4, 6-2 in the third round of the women’s doubles on Show Court 2 at Melbourne Park.

The former Wimbledon and French Open champions failed to save the only break point they conceded, but converted four of eight, winning 62 of the 107 points contested.

The Taiwanese-Chinese duo are to face Czech fourth seeds Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova, who had to rally from a set down before overcoming Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil 2-6, 6-0, 6-4.    [FULL  STORY]