A day after insisting she was still the best player in the world despite falling from No. 1 in the rankings, Serena Williams lost to Patty Schnyder in her first match at the Italian Open on Tuesday.
Williams, playing her first match in almost a month, appeared to be moving with difficulty at times during her 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 loss on clay at Foro Italico.
“We all know who the real No. 1 is,” Williams said on Monday. “Quite frankly, I’m the best in the world.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
The game did not finish until 1am local time and there was a strange and subdued atmosphere, although the Swiss world No. 20 at least managed to lift herself enough to see off her poor opponent.
Earlier world No. 1 Dinara Safina blasted organizers for making her play on a treacherous court as she reached the third round.
The Russian was initially made to work hard before coming through 7-6 (7/1), 6-1 against France’s Virginie Razzano.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Double reigning champion Jelena Jankovic was pushed to the brink by Argentine Gisela Dulko before going through 6-3, 7-6 (8/6) after her match had been delayed for three-and-a-half hours by a torrential downpour.
But Safina, whose match started after the rain, complained that the weather had made the courts too soft and dangerous, as it was difficult to slide.
“I was just so angry because you can get injured,” said Safina, who fell over twice during her match. “I mean, it’s not funny. They tell us go and play because they think the court is fine, but they are not playing on that court. Thank God I didn’t break anything, but if I broke something, I mean, so many players get injured.”
PHOTO: AP
The top seed will play Chinese 14th seed Zheng Jie in the third round after she defeated Russian Elena Vesnina 6-2, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2.
Third seed Jankovic was far from her best and was forced to stay on court for almost two hours by a dogged opponent who had been a first round loser here in four out of five previous appearances.
The Serbian, the world No. 4, ultimately gained revenge on Dulko, who beat her in the second round in Miami last month.
Jankovic, a former world No. 1, will meet Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko next after she dispatched last year’s runner-up, Alize Cornet of France, 6-4, 6-1.
There were no troubles for fifth seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia, who beat home hope Francesca Schiavone 6-3, 6-4.
Flavia Pennetta of Italy defeated Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1. Caroline Wozniacki and Kaia Kanepi also advanced, while 11th-seeded Marion Bartoli suffered an upset.
■BMW OPEN
AP, MUNICH, GERMANY
Lleyton Hewitt on Tuesday became only the third active player on the ATP tour to reach 500 match victories when he saved two match points before beating Philipp Petzschner 6-2, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (8) in the opening round of the BMW Open.
The win did not come easy for the former No. 1 from Australia, who is seeking to climb back into the top 10 after dropping to No. 55 following hip surgery.
Hewitt, a wild-card entry, needed two hours and 34 minutes to overcome his German rival on a cool, damp day. Hewitt wasted two match points in the second set, then saved two in the decisive tiebreaker before converting his seventh match point.
Hewitt now has a 500-170 career record, which includes to major titles. The only two other active players with more than 500 wins are Roger Federer with 638 and Carlos Moya with 573.
Earlier, Marin Cilic of Croatia eased into the second round by beating German qualifier Dieter Kindelmann 6-3, 6-2.
■ESTORIL OPEN
AP, OEIRAS, PORTUGAL
Second-seeded Nikolay Davydenko rallied from two breaks down in the second set to beat Andrey Golubev 6-1, 7-6 (4) on Tuesday in the first round of the Estoril Open.
Earlier, third-seeded David Ferrer won 16 points in a row as he recovered from a weak start to beat Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-4, 6-1.
In the women’s event, second-seeded Maria Kirilenko beat Sharon Fichman 6-7 (8), 6-4, 6-3 and third-seeded Sorana Cirstea won 6-2, 1-6, 6-2 against Kimiko Date Krumm.
Sabrine Lisicki, seeded fourth, triumphed 6-2, 6-2 over Kirsten Flipkens, while seventh-seeded Shahar Peer rallied to beat local favorite Michelle Brito 4-6, 6-0, 6-0.
■SERBIA OPEN
AP, BELGRADE, SERBIA
Janko Tipsarevic beat Sergio Roitman of Argentina 7-5, 6-2 on Tuesday to set up a meeting with home favorite Novak Djokovic in the second round of the Serbia Open, the country’s first ATP Tour tournament.
Djokovic, whose family helped bring the tournament to Belgrade this year after buying the license to the ABM Amro Open, is the top seed and had a first-round bye.
The other seeds in action also advanced.
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