SPORTS
CHINA DAILY Thursday, August 22, 2019 | 23Scoreboard
BASEBALL
Results of the Major League Baseball games on
Tuesday:
L.A. Angels 5, Texas 1, 1st game
Baltimore 4, Kansas City 1
N.Y. Mets 9, Cleveland 2
Philadelphia 3, Boston 2
Seattle 7, Tampa Bay 4
Minnesota 14, Chicago White Sox 4
Houston 6, Detroit 3
Texas 3, L.A. Angels 2, 11 innings, 2nd game
Oakland 6, N.Y. Yankees 2
L.A. Dodgers 16, Toronto 3
SOCCER
UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions League qualifying results on
Tuesday:
Playoff round, first leg
APOEL Nicosia (CYP) 0, Ajax Amsterdam (NED) 0
Linz ASK (AUT) 0, Club Brugge (BEL) 1 (Vanaken
10-pen)
CFR Cluj (ROM) 0, Slavia Prague (CZE) 1 (Masopust 28)
TENNIS
ATP Winston-Salem
Results on Tuesday (x-denotes seeding):
2nd rd
Benoit Paire (FRA x1) bt Prajnesh Gunneswaran
(IND) 6-3, 7-5; Ugo Humbert (FRA x15) bt Bjorn Fra-
tangelo (USA) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2; Pablo Carreno-Busta
(ESP x11) bt Marius Copil (ROM) 6-3, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4;
Lorenzo Sonego (ITA x7) bt Damir Dzumhur (BIH)
6-1, 6-4; Robin Haase (NED) bt Joao Sousa (POR x4)
4-6, 6-3, 6-4; John Millman (AUS x14) bt Marco Cec-
chinato (ITA) 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-3; Casper Ruud (NOR
x12) bt Lloyd Harris (RSA) 6-1, retired; Steve John-
son (USA) bt Daniel Evans (GBR x5) 6-3, 6-1; Filip
Krajinovic (SRB x8) bt Tomas Berdych (CZE) 3-6,
7-5, 6-1; Frances Tiafoe (USA x10) bt Jeremy Char-
dy (FRA) 4-2 retired; Feliciano Lopez (ESP x16) bt
Pablo Andujar (ESP) 6-4, 1-6, 7-5; Hubert Hurkacz
(POL x3) bt Lee Duck-hee (KOR) 4-6, 6-0, 6-3; Sam
Querrey (USA x6) bt Roberto Carballes (ESP) 6-3,
7-5; Andrey Rublev (RUS) bt Albert Ramos (ESP x9)
6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-1; Miomir Kecmanovic (SRB x13) bt
Alexei Popyrin (AUS) 7-6 (7/5), 6-3; Denis Shapova-
lov (CAN x2) bt Tennys Sandgren (USA) 6-2, 6-4
1st rd
Damir Dzumhur (BIH) bt Antoine Hoang (FRA) 6-7
(5/7), 6-0, 6-2; Steve Johnson (USA) bt Corentin
Moutet (FRA) 6-3, 6-3; Andrey Rublev (RUS) bt
Thomas Fabbiano (ITA) 6-4, 6-2
WTA New York
Results on Tuesday:
2nd rd
Camila Giorgi (ITA) bt Andrea Petkovic (GER) 3-6,
7-5, 7-6 (7/3); Alize Cornet (FRA) bt Zhu Lin (CHN)
7-6 (7/5), 4-0 retired; Katerina Siniakova (CZE x5)
bt Anastasia Potapova (RUS) 6-0, 3-0 retired; Ber-
narda Pera (USA) bt Barbora Strycova (CZE x3)
3-6, 6-2, 6-1By XING YI in Shanghai
[email protected]One of the world’s biggest
e-sports tournaments, the Interna-
tional Dota 2 Championships, is
being staged in Shanghai this week,
with a whopping $33 million in
prize money up for grabs.
Sixteen teams from China, Russia,
Europe and North America are bat-
tling it out for a winner’s check of
$15 million at Mercedes-Benz Arena
until Sunday.
This is the first time China has
hosted the annual event, which has
been held in the United States since
2011.
A spectacular opening ceremony
featured a Chinese fan dance with a
soundtrack performed by a live
orchestra.
According to Perfect World Zheng-
qi, operator of the game in China, the
event’s 26,804 tickets were sold out
in just 53 seconds in May.
He Ze, a college student in Jiang-
su province, was one of the lucky
ticket buyers.
“I have played Dota for six years.
The game has strengthened the
bond among my friends and me,”
said He, who attended the event
with his buddies.
“The previous matches were held
overseas, so we had no choice but to
watch them online. We are so excited
that it has come to China this year.”
Ben Sloan, a Hong Kong-based
American businessman, is another
keen spectator.
“Chinese fans are some of the
most passionate and they really sup-
port their teams and the game. I
hope the tournament will be held
here again,” he said.
Dota is an acronym for “Defense
of the Ancients”, one of the world’s
most popular multiplayer online
battle arena games in which com-
petitors level up their heroes and try
to destroy their opponents’ bases.
According to Statista, an online sta-
tistics tracker, the game had an esti-
mated 11.19 million monthly active
users worldwide as of January 2019.
Gabe Newell, co-founder of the
game’s developer and publisher
Valve Corporation, said: “On behalf
of the Dota community I’d like to say
thank you to the citizens and the
government of Shanghai for your
hospitality and kindness.
“We are absolutely delighted to
hold the series here in China.”E-SPORTSGaming
heaven at
Shanghai
showcase
WINSTON-SALEM, North Caro-
lina — Lee Duck-hee tossed the ball
into the air for his first serve in an
ATP tournament match and blast-
ed it past his opponent with a loud
pop.
The 21-year-old South Korean
never heard it. He was born deaf.
The tour’s first deaf professional
player says he doesn’t want to be
defined by the disability that he has
overcome well enough to play at the
sport’s highest level.
Lee’s first appearance in a top-
level tournament was a success — a
7-6 (4), 6-1 victory over Henri Laak-
sonen of Switzerland in the first
round of the Winston-Salem Open
on Monday.
Third seed Hubert Hurkacz,
however, proved too strong for Lee
on Tuesday, with the Pole prevail-
ing 4-6, 6-0, 6-3.
As much as the opening-round
win meant to Lee, it might have
meant even more to hearing-im-
paired athletes in all sports.
“Don’t be discouraged and if you
try hard, you can do anything, you
can achieve anything you want,”
Lee said through an interpreter,
adding that he “doesn’t want peo-
ple to get discouraged and get
down about their disability”.
The ability to hear carries a par-
ticular importance in tennis. Play-
ers often insist on silence during
points so they can hear the ball off
their opponent’s strings and identi-
fy the spin in a split-second.
“I’m never going to know what
it’s like to compete like that,” Andy
Murray said. “But he’s obviously
doing extremely well. It’s an unbe-
lievable achievement.
“I know how important hearing
is in tennis,” the three-time Grand
Slam winner added. “To read the
spins and to see how like, if I was to
play with headphones on, it’s unbe-
lievably difficult to pick up the
speed that the ball’s coming at, the
spin that’s coming. We use our ears
a lot to pick things up.”
Lee makes up for it with his eyes,
focusing on his opponent’s swing,
how that player makes contact and
the speed and spin of the ball as it
races toward him.
Complicating things further, he
also doesn’t speak English and
reads lips instead of using sign lan-
guage. He relies on hand gestures
from umpires making calls.
Because he can’t hear the score
announcements, he keeps track of
points and games in his head —
which can be more difficult in
smaller events that don’t have
courtside scoreboards.
It led to a hiccup early during his
main-draw debut when he lined up
to serve after a game was decided.
“I think the umpire forgot to give
the signal,” , he said, adding he “was
hoping he would give in and out
signals”.
The debut in Winston-Salem is
the next step up the ladder for Lee,
who started playing tennis at 7 —the year after he realized he was
deaf, though doctors had diag-
nosed his condition as a toddler.
“People made fun of my disability
and said I shouldn’t be playing,” Lee
said, adding that his motivation
was to “enjoy life by overcoming my
disability”.
Lee made his debut on the ITF
Futures Tour at 14 and won eight
titles before he turned 18, then
reached three finals of the ATP
Challenger Tour, including one in
June, falling to Dudi Sela at the
Baptist Health Little Rock Open in
Arkansas.
He brought a No 212 world rank-
ing to North Carolina
Lee will always remember his
first ATP-level victory this week —
and not just because of the result.
He was two points away from seal-
ing the win when thunderstorms
forced a weather delay of nearly five
hours.
He and Laaksonen came back to
the court at roughly 10:15 pm — and
wrapped up their match in 87 sec-
onds.
When he was asked how he spent
the delay, Lee got his point across
with pantomime, mimicking some-
one playing table tennis and shoot-
ing basketball, because there was
both a ping-pong table and pop-a-
shot machine in the players’ lounge.
He smiled as his translator said
how “he loves the facility here”.ASSOCIATED PRESSTENNIS
Deafness no big deal for history-maker Lee
South Korea’s Lee Duck-hee, the ATP tour’s first deaf player,
swipes a return to Hubert Hurkacz during their second-round
match at the Winston-Salem Open in North Carolina on Tues-
day.APKnown as the most complete
player on tour in his prime, Lin’s
ferocious attack, dramatic pace
changes and tight defense have all
declined in recent years as his
endurance ebbs.
His sudden collapse in the third
set against 27-year-old Prannoy
underlined his diminishing physi-
cality in the rapid-fire racket sport.
The match was Lin’s second in
just 15 hours following his three-set
first-round win over Nguyen Tien
Minh of Vietnam.
“I didn’t have enough energy in
today’s match, especially in the
final set,” Lin said.
“I played better in the second butnot decided whether to compete in
the 2021 world championships.
“I have not thought about it,” he
said. “At the moment, to qualify for
the Tokyo Olympic Games is the
most important thing.
“Since I have not collected
enough points here, I need to do
much better at the tournaments in
Changzhou and Hong Kong later
this year.”
Lin has won 20 of 32 singles
matches this year at 20 tourna-
ments. He has claimed only one
BWF Tour title — at the Malaysian
Open in early April, by beating
compatriot Chen 2-1 in the final.China’s Lin Dan taps his racket after winning his first-round match against Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh at the world championships in
Basel, Switzerland. Fifteen hours later, Lin’s campaign was over following a loss to India’s HS Prannoy.REUTERSBy SUN XIAOCHEN
[email protected]
Despite seeing his super powers
wane further, Lin Dan has vowed
not to give up on his fading dream
of competing at a fifth Olympics in
Tokyo.
A second-round loss to India’s HS
Prannoy at the world champion-
ships on Tuesday have left the leg-
endary Chinese star with a
mountain to climb to book an
Olympic spot.
However, ‘Super Dan’, who turns
36 in October, was typically defiant
as the curtain seemed to draw ever
closer on the end of his career.
“My goal is always the Tokyo
Olympics and that doesn’t change
anyway,” said Lin, following his
shock 2-1 (21-11, 12-21, 21-7) loss to
Prannoy in Basel, Switzerland —
the five-time champion’s earliest
exit from the worlds since his debut
in 2003.
“All I’ve done and what I will
endeavor to keep doing in training
and competitions is to try to qualify
for Tokyo. Knowing the journey will
be extremely difficult, I will try as
hard as I can.”
According to Badminton World
Federation rules, a country can
select up to two players ranked
within the world’s top 16, as of April
26 next year, to compete in the sin-
gles in Tokyo.
Now the odds are massively
stacked against world No 17 Lin
overtaking his younger compatri-
ots Shi Yuqi (3rd) and Chen Long
(5th).
Should he miss out, Lin’s expect-
ed retirement will officially end a
golden era of badminton which
began in the early 2000s and saw
the two-time Olympic champion
battle for supremacy with three
other now-retired giants of the
court: Malaysia’s former world No 1
Lee Chong Wei, Indonesia’s 2004
Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat
and Danish legend Peter Gade.
Lin’s epic rivalry with Lee in par-
ticular, which began in 2004 and
spanned 40 matches, is among the
greatest in modern-day sport.
Asked about the shift of power in
men’s badminton during the
worlds, an emotional Lin, who won
Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012,
replied: “Many opponents have
come and gone, I am still here
standing.
“I have had the longest career
among my peers, but unfortunately
I now have to play against much
younger competitors with age no
longer on my side.”
BADMINTON
Lin still clinging to Tokyo dream
But legend acknowledges making fifth Olympics now ‘extremely difficult’ after early exit at worlds
in the third I just ran out of energy.
“Some players who played much
earlier than me yesterday will play
their second-round match latertoday. I wish that organizers could
make the schedule fairer.”
As speculation of his retirement
inevitably swirls, Lin said he hasAt the moment, to qualify for the Tokyo
Olympic Games is the most important thing.
Since I have not collected enough points
here, I need to do much better at the
tournaments in Changzhou and Hong Kong
later this year.”Lin Dan, on his chances of Olympic qualification