French Open champion Rafael Nadal suffered a rare taste of defeat as unseeded Nicolas Mahut knocked him out of Queen's in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Nadal was well below his best as Mahut set up an all-French semi-final against Arnaud Clement with an impressive 7-5, 7-6 (7/0) victory over the top seed.
The Spaniard had arrived at the Wimbledon warm-up event on the back of another triumphant clay-court campaign that had concluded with his third consecutive Roland Garros title last Sunday.
PHOTO: AFP
But he remains less than comfortable on grass and Mahut took advantage as he savored the best day of his career. Nadal had quickly wrapped up the one game he needed to beat Max Mirnyi 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 in his rain-delayed third round match earlier on Friday.
But the world No. 2 still looked lethargic against an opponent who had already played virtually a full match on Friday afternoon.
Mahut, ranked 106th in the world, had beaten fifth seed Ivan Ljubicic 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 to reach his first quarter-final of the season and was back on court just hours later.
The 25-year-old showed no signs of flagging and gave Nadal his most rigorous test for weeks. He refused to be bullied by Nadal's power-play and took the first set after breaking in the 12th game.
Nadal had chances to move in front in the second set but squandered four break points in the 11th game.
Mahut showed no sign of nerves as the set went to a tie-break and Nadal gifted him a memorable scalp with a series of unforced errors as he lost the breaker to love.
"It was tough. I really didn't play very well. I tried my best with the best attitude, but I only had one or two chances," Nadal said. "He served very well but I'm happy with my tournament. It is difficult to play every day and to get to the quarter-final on grass is not so bad for me."
Andy Roddick remained on course for a fourth Queen's title after easing into the semi-finals with a 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) victory over Croatian wild card Marin Cilic.
Roddick, the second seed, had too much grasscourt experience for his teenage opponent and now faces Dmitry Tursunov.
The US player won the Wimbledon warm-up event on three successive occasions from 2002 to 2005 and will believe he can tie the record of four singles crowns held by Lleyton Hewitt, Boris Becker and John McEnroe.
Despite his victory Roddick insisted he can still improve.
"If I want to win the tournament I will have to do better than that. I played two good games and then a sloppy one. I wasn't moving as well as I wanted and everything just needs to be a bit sharper," the world No. 3 said.
Cilic, ranked 110th in the world, was understandably nervous in the early stages and struggled to find his range on serve. Roddick took advantage, breaking the teenager in the first game and cruising to a one-set lead.
Roddick was a break down in the second set but he was able to slug his way back into the match as a succession of brutal forehands clinched a break in the seventh game.
The tie-break appeared to be going Cilic's way as he raced into a 5-2 lead, but, although Roddick was never at his best, he kept his nerve and clawed back the deficit before a wild return from Cilic handed him the match.
Fernando Gonzalez suffered a spectacular meltdown as the Chilean third seed crashed out against Tursunov.
Gonzalez was cruising towards the semi-finals when he led 4-2 in the final set, but then lost his cool, allowing Tursunov to break back before destroying his racket and then losing the final three games to go out 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 4-6.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with