Top-seeded Fernando Verdasco saved a match point before beating Daniel Koellerer 6-7 (1), 6-2, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals at the Swedish Open on Thursday.
Fourth-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria, No. 5 Nicolas Almagro of Spain and unseeded Andreas Vinciguerra of Sweden and Juan Monaco of Argentina also reached the last eight in the 62nd edition of the clay-court tournament.
Verdasco was to play Monaco in yesterday’s quarter-finals. Monaco knocked off Victor Crivoi of Romania 6-0, 7-6 (1).
Melzer beat Daniel-Gimeno Traver of Spain 6-2, 6-2 to line up a quarter-final with Vinciguerra, who ousted qualifier Guillermo Canas of Argentina 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4. Almagro rallied past Potito Starace of Italy 2-6, 6-1, 6-1 to play Robin Soderling of Sweden in the last eight.
Defending champion Tommy Robredo of Spain was to face Teimuraz Gabashvili of Russia in the last quarter-final.
■MERCEDES CUP
AP, STUTTGART, GERMANY
Mischa Zverev of Germany upset top-seeded Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday to reach the quarter-finals of the Mercedes Cup.
Zverev also beat Simon at the Rome Masters in May and now leads the Frenchman 2-0.
In another upset, qualifier Lukasz Kubot of Poland beat fifth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-2, 6-4.
Kubot will next face Nicolas Kiefer of Germany, who beat Simon Greul 6-3, 6-4 to reach his first quarter-final of the year.
Second-seeded Nikolay Davydenko eased into the quarter-finals by beating Michael Berrer of Germany 6-3, 6-3.
Davydenko’s quarter-final opponent will be Fabio Fognini of Italy, who advanced when Paul-Henri Mathieu of France retired because of dizzy spells while trailing 6-4, 4-1.
■PRAGUE OPEN
AP, PRAGUE
Third-seeded Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic beat Monica Niculescu of Romania 7-5, 6-4 on Thursday to advance to the quarter-finals of the Prague Open.
Benesova will next face Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, who upset eighth-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-2. The 15-year-old Diyas, who is ranked No. 295, reached her first quarter-final at a WTA Tour event.
Also, Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine defeated Kristina Barrois of Germany 7-5, 7-5, and will next play top-seeded Francesca Schiavone of Italy.
■PALERMO OPEN
AP, PALERMO, ITALY
Former champions Patty Schnyder and Sara Errani advanced to the Palermo Open quarter-finals with straight-sets wins on Thursday.
Second-seeded Schnyder of Switzerland, the champ on her last appearance in 1998, beat Nuria Llagostera Vives of Spain 6-2, 6-2 in a second-round match. Defending champ Errani pleased the home crowd by getting past Patricia Mayr of Austria 7-6 (6), 6-1.
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