Mardy Fish moved into the semi-finals of the Countrywide Classic on Friday with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Florent Serra of France.
Also advancing were third-seeded Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, a 7-6 (6), 6-2 winner over US player Amer Delic, and German left-hander Denis Gremelmayr, who upset fifth-seeded Marat Safin, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The sixth-seeded Fish said he turned down an invitation to the Olympic Games in order to maximize his preparation for the US Open, where he “desperately” wants to do well.
PHOTO: AP
“I felt like I could get some serious matches under my belt, and it’s a tournament I felt I could win,” Fish said.
He hasn’t done anything to make him change his opinion, losing just one set in three matches. Against Serra he got early service breaks in both sets and said that if he hadn’t been broken in the second game of the second set, it would have been a very easy win.
“That 1-0 game was big, having a break and being up 40-15 and losing that,” he said. “I felt like mentally he was almost ready to check out if I had won that game.”
The Floridian almost won the other tournament he played in Southern California this year, bowing to Novak Djokovic in the Indian Wells final in March after beating three top-10 players, including No. 1 Roger Federer.
If Fish is going to play in the final here, he’ll have to beat the 24th-ranked Del Potro, who is bidding for his third straight title after winning clay-court events at Stuttgart and Kitzbuhel.
Del Potro had to work perhaps harder than he anticipated, too, against the 137th-ranked Delic, who had upset No. 7-seeded Carlos Moya in the second round. The two traded service breaks en route to their first set tiebreaker and Delic promptly used two mini-breaks to take a 5-2 lead before Del Potro regrouped. He won three points in a row to get even and then, after Delic took a 6-5 lead, won the last three points, the final one with a good forehand.
“I started out very relaxed,” the 19-year-old Argentine said, “and when he broke my serve [in the seventh game of the first set], I started playing much better. After that I played very good.”
The 1.98m right-hander has improved from No. 50 to a career-high No. 24 in the rankings.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
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