France's Marc Gicquel upset second-seeded Tommy Robredo of Spain, 6-4, 7-6 (4) in the opening round of the 659,000 euro (US$929,190) Lyon Grand Prix on Monday.
The 30-year-old Gicquel avenged a loss in his only other meeting against Robredo, in August just before the US Open, and beat an opponent ranked in the ATP's top 10 for the first time in six tries.
"I tried to be aggressive, to get my points at the net. It paid," said Gicquel, who reached his only singles final in an ATP event last year in Lyon.
US player Mardy Fish also scored a first-round upset, beating seventh-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4).
In other matches, France's Julien Benneteau defeated countryman Edouard Roger-Vasselin, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, and another Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat Vincent Spadea of the US 6-3, 6-4.
Alona Bondarenko beat Martina Muller of Germany 6-3, 6-0 on Monday in the first round of the Generali Ladies.
The 23rd-ranked Bondarenko broke her opponent three times in the first set and dropped only four points on serve in the second.
The Ukrainian will next play either seventh-seeded Tatiana Golovin, who reached the final of the Zurich Open on Sunday, or Eleni Daniilidou.
Yvonne Meusburger also advanced, rallying to beat Melanie Klaffner 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-3.
Meusburger led 3-0 before dropping the first set, but then dominated her 17-year-old opponent in the final two sets.
Ernests Gulbis upset eighth-seeded Thomas Johansson of Sweden 6-2, 6-1 on Monday in the first round of the St. Petersburg Open.
The 47th-ranked Latvian capitalized on Johansson's double-faults in the first and the fifth games of the first set, and won four consecutive games in the second. He finished with 11 aces.
"I know him well, we practice together. He hasn't played even to 50 percent of his potential today," Gulbis said.
Fifth-seeded Dmitry Tursunov also advanced, beating Jurgen Melzer of Austria 7-6 (6), 7-6 (0).
Boris Pashanski of Serbia defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-6 (6), 6-4, and Denis Matsukevitch of Russian beat qualifier Igor Kunitsyn 7-6 (2), 6-3.
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
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