Argentine Guillermo Canas, still rebuilding after a left wrist injury, opened his Barcelona Open campaign on Monday with a 6-1, 6-4 first-round win over unseeded Spaniard Oscar Hernandez.
Ninth seed Canas, the runner-up to Rafael Nadal last year, cruised through the first set and kept his concentration in the second to see off Hernandez, ranked 72.
Having missed the Australian Open because of injury, Canas returned to the tour in Acapulco in late February and reached the semi-finals of the ATP event in Las Vegas.
PHOTO: AFP
The 30-year-old, now ranked 31, will play either Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili or his compatriot Guillermo Coria, the former French Open runner-up who was granted a wildcard.
Croatian Mario Ancic, himself in the early stages of a comeback from illness and injury, crushed German Mischa Zverev 6-1, 6-0 to set up a second-round meeting with seventh seed Andy Murray of Britain.
Ancic, who was ranked in the top 10 in 2006, missed six months of last year because of glandular fever, but has climbed to the verge of the world’s top 50 thanks to a run of form that included a final appearance in Marseille in February, where he lost to Murray.
“I think he was struggling a little bit on the clay,” Ancic said of Zverev.
“I was happy that I played solid from the first to the last point. It’s never easy when you win the first set so easy but I played well, served well and didn’t let anything slip through my hands. I’m still looking for my game a little bit but hopefully it [the Murray match] is going to be a good battle,” he said.
Spanish 13th seed Fernando Verdasco was a first-round casualty, going down 6-3, 6-4 to Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador.
Another Argentine, Juan Ignacio Chela, a late replacement for former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero, who pulled out on the eve of the event with a groin injury, rallied past Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-7 6-4 6-2.
Russian Dmitry Tursunov, seeded 15, won his first match on clay since last year’s French Open when he ousted big-serving South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-3, while Dutchman Robin Haase beat Max Mirnyi of Belarus 6-2, 6-2 and now plays sixth seed Tommy Robredo.
Top seed Nadal begins his bid for a fourth successive Barcelona title today against the winner of the first-round match between Italian Potito Starace and Australian Peter Luczak.
Meanwhile, king of the clay court artists Nadal will be feeling good about his game as he headlines the Barcelona Open following an historic fourth straight Monte Carlo title taken at the expense of Roger Federer.
“I lost easy in Australia [semi-finals], Indian Wells [semi-finals] and Miami [final against Nikolay Davydenko],” said Nadal, who has won 98 of his last 99 matches on clay.
“But when you are playing well, you feel you can win a tournament. Playing a bad match in the last round leaves you with a bad feeling going into the next event,” he said.
Nadal, who beat rival Roger Federer for the third consecutive year in the Monte Carlo title match — won’t be having that problem as he awaits a second round opponent from Italian Potito Starace and Pete Luczak.
The Warsaw-born Luczak may be an Aussie, but that doesn’t preclude him from having a handy game on the dirt, having won four of his last five this month on the surface.
Nadal will be in demand on and off the court this week in the Catalan capital, with a Monday sponsor appearance already ticked off the list of his mandatory sponsor activities.
As in Monaco, the world No. 2 is aiming for more record-setting, hoping to lift his fourth straight at the Real club.
Number 15 Russian Dmitry Tursunov became the first seed to advance, defeating South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-3 while Ecuador’s Nicolas Lapentti scored an upset as he beat Fernando Verdasco, 13th, with a 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.
British wildcard Andy Murray’s second-round opponent will be a rejuvenated Mario Ancic, who crushed Russian Mihail Zverev 6-1, 6-0. Ancic leads Murray 2-1 in their meetings, taking the last victory in march in the Miami second round.
“We’ve had some tough matches,” said the Croatian, who recovered last year from glandular fever which kept him out of action for six months.
Murray won in February when he faced Ancic in the Marseille final. As usual, the Barcelona field is packed with locals, with 10 Spaniards playing first-round matches.
Unknown number 237 Gabriel Trujillo-Soler booked the first Iberian victory, reaching the second round over hard-luck Austrian Werner Eschauer 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.
Eschauer has not won an ATP-level match since Jan. 1, suffering eight losses at the senior level.
Jonas Vingegaard on Tuesday claimed the overall Vuelta a Espana lead while Jay Vine earned the stage 10 victory for his second triumph of the race. Two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard overhauled Torstein Traen’s lead to head the general classification by 26 seconds from the Norwegian, with Joao Almeida third and trailing the Dane by 38 seconds. Vine put in an unmatchable performance on the final climb to finish ahead of Spanish Movistar riders Pablo Castrillo and Javier Romo. “Back in red, I’m happy with it, it’s a beautiful jersey,” Vingegaard said. “I’m happy with how the day went,
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
RIVALRY: Carlos Alcaraz lost his previous two matches against Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, in the Australian Open quarter-finals this year and Paris Olympics final last year Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday dazzled at the US Open to make the semi-finals before Novak Djokovic of Serbia danced his way through to book a New York showdown with the Spaniard that would mark the latest chapter in their generational rivalry. Former champion Alcaraz produced yet another entertaining display at Flushing Meadows to dismantle 20th seed Jiri Lehecka 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 at a sunbathed Arthur Ashe Stadium, securing his place in the last four without dropping a set this year. “Sometimes I play a shot that I should not play in that moment, but it’s the way I love
Spain are in danger of not getting out of EuroBasket Group C after losing 67-63 to Italy on Tuesday, but the defending champions still control their destiny. Marco Spissu put Italy in front for good at 64-63 with two free throws with 31 seconds left and made two more with 14 seconds remaining. Giampaolo Ricci converted one of two free throws with eight seconds on the clock. Spain, which in 2022 won their fourth title, are tied with Georgia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina at 2-2 each. Greece and Italy have clinched two of the group’s four spots in the round-of-16,
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