Sports x 07CONTACT US AT: 8351-9190, WINDYSJF@HOTMAIL.COM

Tuesday September 4, 2018

THE 18th Asian Games drew to a successful end with a stel-lar closing ceremony Sunday as Asian sports power China again dominated the medal table of the multi-sport event.

China won 132 gold, 92 silver and 65 bronze medals, although the Asian giant sent a relatively young delegation, with 631 out of their 845-athlete squad having participated in neither the Olym-pics nor the Asian Games.

“The Asian Games can serve as a mid-term exam for us in build-up to the Tokyo Olympics,” Chinese delegation general sec-retary Liu Guoyong said during the Games. “The Games could give them a feel for major inter-national sporting events.”

Japan on Sunday won the mixed triathlon gold in the last event of the two-week, 40-sport Games, ahead of the closing cer-emony held in the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium.

Japan achieved better-than-expected results at the Asiad as the side wrapped up the campaign with a total of 205 medals, including 75 golds, 56 silvers, and 74 bronzes, overtak-ing South Korea to fi nish second in the tally for the fi rst time in a decade.

South Korea totalled 49 golds, including the men’s soccer gold medal. North Korea and South Korea formed a unifi ed team to participate in three sports at the Games and won four medals overall, including a historic gold in dragon boat racing, which was the fi rst gold medal by a unifi ed Korean team at a major multi-sport event.

A fl ag handover ceremony was held amid the closing cer-emony as Xu Liyi, mayor of East China’s Hangzhou, was handed the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) fl ag, marking the Asian Games entrance into “Hang-zhou Time.”

Hangzhou, set to hold the next Asian Games in 2022, is the third Chinese host of the continent’s showpiece event after Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010.

(Xinhua)

LEWIS HAMILTON won the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday after starting third on the grid to extend his championship lead over Sebastian Vettel fol-lowing an opening-lap collision with the German driver that effectively ended his chances of victory.

Ferrari had been hopeful of ending an eight-year wait for a win at its home track after taking the front two places on the grid at the Italian GP for the fi rst time since 2000. However, pole-sitter Raikkonen was over-taken by Hamilton eight laps from the end and the Mercedes driver held on, much to the dis-appointment of the passionate Italian tifosi fans.

“Today was so diffi cult. Whilst the negativity is never great, that’s what powered me along. I actually accept it,” Hamilton said after getting roundly booed on the podium.

Hamilton, who said he rated the win as among the top per-formances of his career, tied Michael Schumacher’s record of fi ve Italian GP victories and extended his overall lead to 30 points over Vettel.

“Disappointed but there was nothing I could do,” said Raik-konen, who struggled with a tire problem in the fi nal few laps.

Hamilton’s teammate Valt-teri Bottas was third, ahead of Vettel and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who received

SERENA WILLIAMS reached the quarterfi nals at Flushing Meadows for a 10th consecutive appearance — she wasn’t there last year because she gave birth to her daughter during the tour-nament — by picking her level up after a lull and using 18 aces to beat Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-0, 4-6, 6-3.

This match was fi lled with big hitting by both women, along with all manner of shifts in momentum and quality of play. In the 18-minute shutout of the fi rst set, Kanepi’s strokes were off and Williams’ were pretty much perfect as she grabbed 24 of 30 points.

But after compiling 14 win-ners and only two unforced errors in that set, Williams began making mistakes, becom-ing less and less comfortable as Kanepi grew increasingly so. Kanepi is ranked only 44th, but she’s been a top-20 player in the past and has made it to Grand Slam quarterfi nals a half-dozen times. Sure, that’s noth-ing compared to Williams’ 23 major titles, but it’s something. Plus, it’s worth remembering this: Kanepi eliminated No. 1 Simona Halep on Day 1 of this tournament.

In a blink, Williams had a match on her hands. Kanepi was matching Williams’ power with booming groundstrokes of her own. She was getting better

LIONEL MESSI and Luis Suarez scored twice each as La Liga champion Barcelona turned on the style to hammer Huesca 8-2 on Sunday and join Real Madrid as the only teams in the league to win their opening three games.

Top-fl ight debutants Huesca took a shock early lead in their fi rst league visit to the Nou Camp when Colombian forward Cucho Hernandez defl ected the ball in from point-blank range, but Messi soon dampened the celebrations of the visiting sup-porters by cannoning a shot in off the post to level in the 16th.

An own goal from Jorge Pulido gave Barca the lead and Suarez extended their lead by scoring for the fi rst time in fi ve games

in all competitions after the video assistant referee (VAR) overturned an offside call from the linesman.

Huesca’s Alex Gallar pulled one back before halftime to make it 3-2 but any hope of a revival from the visitors was soon killed off by three Barca goals in 11 minutes from Ousmane Dem-bele, Ivan Rakitic and another strike from Messi. Jordi Alba capped a brilliant performance to score the seventh after setting up two of the earlier goals, while Suarez added number eight with a penalty in stoppage time as Messi turned down the chance to complete a hat trick, offering the spot-kick to the Uruguayan instead. (SD-Agencies)

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton celebrates in the pit lane after winning the Italian Grand Prix in Monza on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Serena hits 18 aces in US Open win

reads on Williams’ serves. And Williams began making more and more mistakes.

When Williams shanked a backhand return of a 103 mph serve, the match was a little more than an hour old, and it was all tied at a set apiece. That was the fi rst set she had lost against Kanepi of the 10 they’d played to that point, and the fi rst set Williams had lost at the 2018

U.S. Open, a run that included a 6-1, 6-2 victory over her older sister Venus in the third round Friday night.

After a scream-inspiring hold to begin the fi nal set, Williams broke away to lead 2-0. She then faced a break point, but Kanepi wasted that chance by sending a backhand wide.

From there, Williams smacked an ace at 118 mph, followed by

a service winner at 113 mph to go up 3-0, and that essentially was that.

Kanepi’s take on Wiliams’ serve? “Unreturnable,” she called it.

Next for the 36-year-old American comes a quarterfi nal against 2016 runner-up Karolina Pliskova, who beat Williams in the U.S. Open semifi nals that year. (SD-Agencies)

Asian Games close as China dominates medal table

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Chi-nese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, performs during the “Hangzhou Time” of the closing ceremony for the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday night. Xinhua

Serena Williams of the United States hits a return to Kaia Kanepi of Estonia during their U.S. Open match in New York on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Barca humiliates Huesca

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi (R) celebrates scoring their sixth goal against Huesca with teammate Luis Suarez at Camp Nou in Barcelona on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Hamilton wins Italian GP

a fi ve-second penalty.The 33-year-old Hamilton

pinpointed the collision with Vettel as the decisive moment of the race.

“That was defi nitely a very, very key moment, getting past him was the immediate goal ... my race is not really with Kimi, it’s with Sebastian. However, I do need to get past Kimi at the same time,” Hamilton said.

“Getting past Sebastian at the beginning was clearly a massive turning point. That defi nitely took a lot of pressure off ... I could just focus on Kimi for the whole race. We had a couple of good battles.”

(SD-Agencies)