The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Cox medals are stolen
Double Paralympic champion Kadeena Cox has had two of her IPC Athletics World Championships medals stolen.
Cox, who became the first Briton since 1988 to win a medal in two sports at the same Games in Rio last summer, left the medals in her car in Prestwich, Bury whilst filming in London on Thursday. Andy Murray was proud of his French Open efforts after falling just short against Stan Wawrinka in a brutal semi-final tussle in Paris yesterday.
Scot Murray ended Wawrinka’s reign as champion in the semi-finals 12 months ago but could not engineer a repeat as the Swiss triumphed 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 after four hours and 34 minutes.
It was a rollercoaster of a match, with Murray second best for most of the first three sets but somehow emerging two sets to one in front. He then looked in control of the fourth but it was Wawrinka who dominated the tiebreak and, by the decider, Murray was spent.
Wawrinka, who has won all his previous three grand slams finals, will face Rafael Nadal in tomorrow’s final after the Spaniard brushed aside the challenge of Austrian Dominic Thiem 6-3, 6-4, 6-0.
Having arrived in Paris with only four wins since February and unsure even whether he would survive one match, Murray could not be too unhappy with his loss. He said: “I’m proud of the tournament I had. I did well considering. I was one tiebreak away from getting to the final when I came in really struggling. So I have to be proud. “Maybe the lack of matches hurt me a little bit in the end today. That was a high-intensity match. A lot of long points. When you haven’t been playing loads, four-and-a-half hours can catch up to you a bit. I only have myself to blame for the way I played coming into the tournament.
“But I turned my form around well and ended up having a good tournament, all things considered.”
Murray is still not quite at the same level as he was last year, when he played probably his best clay-court match to defeat Wawrinka and then went on to dominate the second half of the season.
He was unable to take the match to his opponent in the same way and for most of the contest it was attack against defence.
But what attack and what defence. Wawrinka smashed 87 winners, mostly off his forehand to start with before the backhand joined the party in the second set.
The 32-year-old, now the oldest French Open men’s finalist since Niki Pilic in 1973, could have won all of the first three sets but somehow found himself behind. That was mostly to do with Murray’s incredible defensive skills and relentless fighting spirit.
Wawrinka was happy with the way he stayed in the match and felt Murray was not the same opponent he faced 12 months ago.
“It wasn’t easy to be two sets to one down,” he said. “When you play a player like Andy, you know that you can dominate the games, but he’s still going to be there.
“He’s still going to do incredible defence, play the right tennis in the right moment. That’s why he’s number one in the world.
“I was trying to focus on my game. I knew I had some good chances in the first set, in the third set also. I’m really happy to find a way how to win the match.
“Last year he was stronger. He was very aggressive and he never really let me instal my game. Today I think he’s less confident. He played a bit less fast. He was a little more hesitant.” Rafael Nadal is one win away from an unprecedented 10th title at the French Open after dominating his semi-final against Dominic Thiem.
Austrian Thiem went into the match fresh from his stunning upset of defending champion Novak Djokovic and looking for a second successive win against Spaniard Nadal.
But Philippe Chatrier is the Spaniard’s stage and Thiem found Nadal a very different opponent to the one he met at the Italian Open in Rome last month.
Nadal was just too good and heads into Sunday’s final against Stan Wawrinka having not dropped a set in the tournament after a 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 win.
Simona Halep refused to believe her French Open dreams were over before they had begun and now stands one win away from her first grand slam title.
The Romanian, who will face unseeded Jelena Ostapenko today, was installed as the favourite after retaining her title at the Madrid Open last month and went on to reach another final at the Italian Open the following week.
But during that match against Elina Svitolina, Halep went over on her right ankle, and when a scan showed a torn ligament, her chances of even being in Paris were rated only 50-50. Not by Halep, though. “I was scared, because they told me that it (the ligament) is broken,” she said. “I had no idea what does it mean. But I refused to accept that I cannot play, so I think I recovered faster mentally because of the positive thinking, and I really wanted to be here. So it didn’t matter what the scan showed.”
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