Former French Open champion Gaston Gaudio won his first match in nearly two years by defeating Argentine countryman Diego Junqueira 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 at the Barcelona Open on Tuesday.
Gaudio, the Barcelona winner seven years ago, converted six of his seven break opportunities and rallied from a break down in the final set for his first victory at ATP level since the 2007 French Open, a span of 23 months.
“It’s always nice to win after being out for so long, but I’m hardly at a level where I can be happy,” said the 30-year-old Gaudio, the 2004 French champ who was No. 966 in the world rankings.
PHOTO: AP
“Tennis is bad business for me, but being away from it is even worse,” he said.
Fourth-seeded David Ferrer held off a stubborn challenge from Kazakhstan qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin to win 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
After taking the first set, the 12th-ranked Spaniard broke for a 3-1 lead in the second frame before Kukushkin used his powerful groundstrokes to score successive breaks and take it to a third set.
But Ferrer steadied himself and put the Kazakh on the run in the fourth game and forced a return into the net for a break point and a 3-1 lead that would propel him to victory.
Igor Andreev also joined Ferrer in the third round when he dismissed Spanish wild card Alberto Martin 6-2, 6-2.
In other first-round matches, seeded players Radek Stepanek, Robin Soderling, Richard Gasquet and Feliciano Lopez all won.
The only seed to exit so far was No. 11 Marat Safin after the 2000 champion lost to Juan Monaco of Argentina 6-4, 6-1.
Third-seeded Nikolay Davydenko was to open against Arnaud Clement yesterday after the Frenchman ousted Guillermo Canas 7-6 (0), 6-3.
Top-ranked Rafael Nadal was to begin his chase for a fifth straight Godo trophy against Portuguese qualifier Frederico Gil yesterday.
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
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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