American Andre Agassi stumbled out to a 4-1 deficit, then recovered to beat local wild-card entry Simon Larose 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday and reach the quarterfinals of the Canada Masters.
The top-seeded Agassi, a three-time champion at the hard-court tuneup for the US Open, wasn't worried when he trailed.
"I quickly turned it around," he said. "Today, I definitely took a big step forward."
Agassi next faces Rainer Schuettler in a rematch of their Australian Open final in January. Agassi beat the German in straight sets then, and this will be their first meeting since.
Schuettler, seeded eighth, beat 10th-seeded Jiri Novak 7-5, 6-0.
In later action in Canada, sixth-seeded Andy Roddick made the round of eight by beating No. 9 Sebastien Grosjean 6-3, 6-3. Roddick's next opponent is Karol Kucera, who upset French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero by a score of 6-3, 7-5.
That allowed Wimbledon champion Roger Federer to move past Ferrero for the top spot in the ATP Champions Race, the calendar-year ratings based on performances at the top tournaments.
Federer, seeded third, eliminated No. 16 Tommy Robredo 6-4, 6-3, setting up a quarterfinal against Max Mirnyi, who upset No. 11 Paradorn Srichaphan 6-3, 6-2.
Mirnyi has won his last two hard-court matches against Federer, including at last year's US Open.
David Nalbandian, last year's Wimbledon runner-up, downed Vince Spadea 6-4, 6-2, and next faces Feliciano Lopez, who ousted Karol Beck 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Lopez had a record of only 10-16 this year until he entered Wimbledon, where he made the fourth round for the second straight year. He lost to eventual champion Roger Federer.
Since then, Lopez has advanced to the semifinals at two of four tournaments.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier