Roger Federer was set to bid for his third consecutive title at the Swiss Indoors tournament in yesterday’s final against David Nalbandian.
In Saturday’s semi-finals, Federer dispatched Spain’s Felicano Lopez 6-3, 6-2 in 61 minutes while Nalbandian, also a former champion, needed not much longer as he beat Argentine Davis Cup teammate Juan Del Potro 6-4, 6-4.
Top seed Federer is aiming to complete a hat-trick after winning the last two editions at the event where he got his start in the game as a teenaged ballboy. Nalbandian, the 2002 champion and losing finalist the next two years, is aiming his season at the Nov. 21 to Nov. 23 Davis Cup final with Spain. But the former Wimbledon finalist would not object to Swiss success as he plays his fourth Basel final in seven editions.
PHOTO: AP
■ ST PETERSBURG OPEN
AFP, SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Defending champion Andy Murray, top seed of the US$1 million St Petersburg Open, cruised on Saturday into the final, beating Spain’s Fernando Verdasco in a replay of the last year’s final.
Murray, who is fourth in the ATP rankings, won 6-0, 6-3 in one hour 14 minutes to record his fourth win over the 24-year-old Spaniard in as many meetings.
In the other semi-final, Kazakhstan’s qualifier Andrey Golubev, who stands 150th in the ATP rankings, saw off Romania’s Victor Hanescu in straight sets 6-3, 6-0 in their first ever head-to-head meeting.
■ GENERALI LADIES
AP, LINZ, AUSTRIA
Top-seeded Ana Ivanovic reached her first final on Saturday since winning the French Open in June, beating No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 in the semi-finals of the Generali Ladies.
The Serb was set to play yesterday against second-seeded Vera Zvonareva, who routed No. 6 Marion Bartoli of France 6-0, 6-1.
It will be Ivanovic’s fourth final this season. She won in Indian Wells but lost to Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open.
The fourth-ranked Ivanovic is 3-2 against Zvonareva, who will play her seventh final this season. She has also won two titles this year, in Prague and Guangzhou.
Ivanovic dominated the opening set from the baseline, but dropped serve three times in the second after facing nine breakpoints.
■ LYON GRAND PRIX
AFP, LYON, FRANCE
Sweden’s Robin Soderling and France’s Julien Benneteau were set to compete in yesterday’s ATP final following victories over Madrid finalist Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Swedish seventh seed Soderling, considered by French opponent Simon as “one of the best indoor players in the world,” won 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 while Benneteau beat Tsonga 7-6 (7/4), 7-5. Soderling, who won in Lyon in 2004, had trouble in the first set but hit back in the second and then, breaking Simon’s serve in the first game of the final set, went on to victory.
Simon, who beat world number one Rafael Nadal last week in Madrid, said: “At the beginning of the second set I felt I was losing it. I wasn’t able to return so well and I had my serve broken twice stupidly.”
■ FORTIS CHAMPIONSHIPS
AP, LUXEMBOURG
Top-seeded Elena Dementieva was set to face Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in the final of the Fortis Championships yesterday.
Olympic champion Dementieva easily beat eighth-seeded Sorana Cirstea of Romania 6-2, 6-2 in the semi-finals on Saturday.
The Russian is chasing her third title of the year.
Wozniacki secured her place in the final by defeating sixth-seeded Li Na of China 7-6 (1), 3-6, 6-2.
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier