WUHAN, China — Venus Williams won her biggest title in five years at the Wuhan Open Saturday, after Garbine Muguruza retired making her the fifth player to pull out mid-match in the late-season tournament. Williams took the first set and was three points up when the Spaniard stopped play at 53 minutes, handing the American veteran the 47th title win of her career, and her first victory at a WTA Premier Five event since she beat Victoria Azarenka in 2010 in Dubai. Wimbledon finalist Muguruza — ranked world No. 8, 15 places ahead of American veteran Williams — had a tough semifinal against Germany's Angelique Kerber, winning in straight sets but falling during the closing tie break and injuring her ankle. But the 21-year-old said it was exhaustion not injury that made her pull out. “It's a sad day I had to retire. Sometimes your body's not recovered,” the 21-year-old said on court after the match. Muguruza called her coach Sam Sumyk — who was wearing a t-shirt bearing the phrase “It's not my fault” — on court during the first set but no words of advice could change the slow pace of the match. Williams, who turned pro the year that Muguruza was born, was also struggling during the final with leg pain and had both of her thighs wrapped. Earlier, Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza beat Irina-Camelia Begu and Monica Niculescu in straight sets in the doubles final. The winning duo dropped serve three times and had to fight back from a 2-0 deficit in the second set, but the No.1-seeded Hingis and Mirza won 6-2, 6-3. The Swiss-Indian pairing have seven WTA doubles titles this year and have won their last three tournaments in a row — the US Open, Guangzhou and Wuhan — and 13 straight matches. Lopez beats Kyrgios Second-seeded Feliciano Lopez fired in 12 aces to edge past Nick Kyrgios 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5) in the semifinals of the Malaysian Open Saturday and set up an all-Spanish final against top seed David Ferrer. The 34-year-old Lopez won 85 per cent of his first-serve points in an intense battle against his 20-year-old Australian opponent. “Experience is always a good thing to have but today I think the match could have gone either way,” Lopez said. “If you play a tie-break against someone who's such a good server as Nick you know it's going to be tight.” Ferrer was given an early scare in his semifinal when Benjamin Becker won the first set but the Spaniard bounced back to win 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. Hibino claims Tashkent Open Nao Hibino of Japan cruised past Croatia's Donna Vekic 6-2, 6-2 Saturday to win the Tashkent Open final. Hibino's speed on court caused problems for Vekic, who also appeared increasingly frustrated by the noisy crowd which frequently held up play in the capital of Uzbekistan. The 21-year-old Hibino, ranked 117th in the world, held serve throughout and took advantage of nine double faults from Vekic to break her 19-year-old opponent twice in each set. Earlier Saturday, the Russian duo of Margarita Gasparyan and Alexandra Panova won the doubles final 6-1, 3-6, 10-3 against Russia's Vera Dushevina and Czech player Katerina Siniakova. Rain frustrates Berdych, Cilic Tomas Berdych and Marin Cilic endured a frustrating wait Saturday as heavy rain washed out their respective Shenzhen Open semifinals and postponed them by a day. Top seed Berdych's match against Tommy Robredo and Cilic's meeting with Guillermo Garcia-Lopez were delayed and finally abandoned after persistent rain fell over the southern Chinese city. Both semifinals will now start at 1:00 pm Sunday, according to a revised schedule, followed by doubles matches. No timing was released for the singles final. — Agencies
