World No. 1 Rafael Nadal and defending champion Novak Djokovic stayed on course for a semi-final showdown with third-round triumphs at the Indian Wells Masters on Tuesday.
Top-seeded Nadal triumphed 6-3, 6-3 in a tricky encounter with Russian Dmitry Tursunov, while third-seeded Serbian Djokovic beat German veteran Tommy Haas 6-2, 7-6 (7/1).
“It wasn’t one of my best matches, true,” said Australian Open champion Nadal, who had to save a break point in the final game, but won the next three points to secure the win.
PHOTO: AFP
Nadal‘s victory, which earned him a fourth-round match against Argentina’s David Nalbandian, who hasn’t dropped a set against Nadal in two career meetings, both in 2007 before the Spaniard’s rise to No. 1.
“The first thing is to play well,” Nadal said of what he’ll have to do against Nalbandian, who beat Serbian Viktor Troicki 6-4, 6-2. “Second, I have to play really aggressive, because if he has control of the point it is nearly impossible.”
Djokovic, who beat Nadal in last year’s semi-finals en route to the title, started strong, but would have preferred to finish off Haas more quickly.
PHOTO: AFP
Overall, however, the 21-year-old was satisfied that he was moving in the right direction.
“Better than the first match,” was Djokovic’s assessment. “I played really well in the opening set and then could have done the job a bit earlier.”
Djokovic next plays Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka, who saved two match points in the third-set tiebreaker to claim a 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10/8) victory over Sam Querrey of the US.
PHOTO: AFP
Sixth-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro advanced, beating Austrian Jurgen Melzer 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (7/2).
Seventh-seeded American Andy Roddick edged Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer 6-4, 7-6 (7/4).
Roddick will face 12th-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer, who rallied for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over unseeded Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, while del Potro will face wild card John Isner of the US, a 6-4, 6-4 winner over former world No. 1 Marat Safin of Russia.
PHOTO : AFP
Meanwhile, Safin’s younger sister, top-seeded Dinara Safina, led the way into the women’s quarter-finals with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over US veteran Jill Craybas.
Safina, who can seize the world No. 1 ranking from the absent Serena Williams if she reaches the final, lined up a meeting with eighth-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, who downed Israeli Shahar Peer 7-5, 6-4.
Safina won all three of her meetings against Azarenka last year.
Defending champion Ana Ivanovic booked a quarter-final berth, the fifth-seeded Serbian downing Italian Flavia Pennetta 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. She’ll face Austrian Sybille Bammer, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova.
Rising Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 17, continued the run of success that saw her oust second-seeded Jelena Jankovic in the second round, advancing to the quarter-finals when opponent Nuria Llagostera Vives retired in the second set with a hip strain.
Pavlyuchenkova was leading 6-3, 3-0 when the Spaniard called it a day.
Pavlyuchenkova will face seventh-seeded Pole Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat Agnes Szavay 6-0, 5-7, 6-3.
Fourth-seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva also advanced with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over China’s Li Na. Zvonareva next faces ninth-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki, a 7-5, 6-3 winner over Urszula Radwanska — the younger sister of Agnieszka.
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