Seventh-seeded Andy Roddick easily advanced to the semifinals at the Cincinnati Masters, defeating Argentine Mariano Zabaleta 6-1, 6-2 Friday.
Roddick, who won his first Masters Series title in Montreal on Sunday, is going for his second straight hard-court victory heading into the US Open. The American was cheered on by the crowd.
"That has a lot to do with playing in the States," said Roddick, who is on the verge of rock-star cult status and won't turn 21 until Aug. 30, a couple days after the US Open begins.
In another match, Max Mirnyi waited out a rain delay and then upset No. 6 seed Guillermo Coria 6-2, 7-5. The unseeded Mirnyi won despite two rain delays totaling almost three hours. Only two of the 16 seeds are still in the tournament.
In the other quarterfinals, No. 8 Rainer Schuettler beat Robby Ginepri 6-2, 6-3 in an evening match. Mardy Fish beat David Nalbandian 7-6 (3), 6-3 in the last match of the night.
Roddick plays Mirnyi in one semifinal Saturday. Schuettler will meet Fish in the other. If either Roddick or Schuettler do not advance to Sunday's final, it will be the first time since unseeded Chris Lewis in 1981 that two seeded players did not make it that far. Lewis lost to No. 1 John McEnroe 6-3, 6-4.
Mirnyi, who plays a strong serve-and-volley game, thought it would be difficult for the a baseline-playing Argentine to handle.
The match was stopped because of rain the first time with Mirnyi leading 6-2, 2-2, but only for 28 minutes. Then, serving 6-2, 5-5, it began to rain again as Mirnyi and Coria played out a final point, seemingly won by Mirnyi before the players ran off the court.
When they returned 2 hours, 23 minutes later, the referee took away the point, calling it a let. It didn't seem to affect Mirnyi, who won the final two games.
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
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