Tommy Robredo of Spain and Russian qualifier Evgeny Korolev won second-round matches in straight sets on Thursday to set up a quarter-final meeting at the 59th Swedish Open.
Robredo, a semi-finalist four times during six trips to southern Sweden, breezed past Germany's Alexander Waske 6-3, 6-1 on the slow clay. Korolev, playing from the baseline, beat Luis Horna of Peru 6-2, 6-3.
Robredo, who won the Hamburg Masters in May for the biggest title of his career, did not lose a point on first serve in the opening set.
The second-seeded Spaniard broke Waske's serve at the start of the second set and easily held his own the rest of the way.
For Korolev, it was the fifth match in six days. He won three matches in the qualifying event last weekend to get into the main draw. The 18-year-old has only lost one set so far.
Korolev has won through the qualifying event to take a spot in the main draw in each of his five career ATP tournaments. Since the start of the year, he has improved from No. 188 in the rankings to a career-high 126th.
Robin Soderling delighted a record crowd of 6,910 by defeating fifth-seeded David Ferrer of Spain 6-3, 6-1.
"It was very good. I played consistent tennis throughout the match," Soderling said.
"I hit the ball well and played well on the important points, at deuce for instance," he said.
Soderling broke for a 5-3 lead in the first set and then held. In the second set he broke for 1-0 and 3-0 leads. It was his third win in as many matches against Ferrer.
Next up for Soderling is Agustin Calleri of Argentina, a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Nicolas Almagro of Spain.
In the other quarter-finals, it's top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia against Chile's Nicolas Massu, and No. 4 Jarkko Nieminen of Finland against former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain.
Second-seeded Gaston Gaudio of Argentina beat Christophe Rochus of Belgium 6-0, 6-4 in another rain-interrupted day at the Swiss Open on Thursday.
Gaudio, a former French Open winner and the defending champion here, will meet Richard Gasquet in the quarter-finals, after the Frenchman easily got past Robin Vik of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-1.
In the only other completed match on Wednesday, Andrei Pavel of Romania upset eighth-seeded Max Mirnyi of Belarus 6-2, 6-4.
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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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