Marat Safin, playing for the fourth time in three days, summoned enough energy to beat Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the second round of the LA Open on Wednesday.
Safin, who played an exhibition match against Pete Sampras on Monday and beat Robby Ginepri the following night, also teamed with Igor Kunitsyn to win a first-round doubles on Monday.
“It was different conditions,” the 29-year-old Safin said after advancing to his third straight Los Angeles quarter-final. “It was during the day, so it’s completely opposite the night. The balls are flying much more so it’s tough to really control them and it takes some time to get used to it. I was a little bit slow at the beginning of the match.”
PHOTO: AP
The win over Gulbis put the two-time Grand Slam champion into his first quarter-finals of the year and earned him at least a day off from singles play.
The grind is a big reason why Safin says he will retire at the end of this season.
“There are so many [other] things to do. I need some vacation, take half a year just to relax and realize that I’m not anymore a tennis player and to understand that there is life afterward,” he said. “I need to relax. There was so much stress throughout the years. There is no matches, there is no more match points, there is no more deuces, there is no more second serves. It’s a different way of thinking and I need to take some time off to really understand it.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
In the quarter-finals, Safin will meet top seed Tommy Haas of Germany, who defeated Jesse Levine 6-1, 6-3 in the final singles match Wednesday night.
Also advancing to the quarter-finals was John Isner of the US, who overcame an injury late in the second-set tiebreaker to beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-3, 7-6 (11). Australian qualifier Carsten Ball moved on with a 6-4, 1-0 victory over No. 3 seed Dmitry Tursunov of Russia, who was unable to continue in the second set due to a left ankle injury.
Isner twisted his left ankle and collapsed on the court after trying to reverse direction on a forehand that gave Baghdatis an 11-10 lead in the tiebreaker.
■ CROATIA OPEN
AP, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
Elena Dementieva and Russian compatriot Maria Sharapova won through to the quarter-finals of the WTA’s Bank of the West Classic with identical 6-1, 6-2 scorelines on Wednesday.
The third-seeded Dementieva breezed past Russian Maria Kirilenko, while Sharapova had a surprisingly comfortable win over fifth-seeded Nadia Petrova in another all-Russian match.
In other results on Wednesday, Slovakia’s Daniel Hantuchova ousted seventh-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1 in a tight battle, while Australia’s Sam Stosur downed Romania’s Monica Niculescu 6-1, 7-5.
Britain’s Anne Keothavong, who left her doubles match after crashing into a fence on Tuesday night, is out for the rest of the season. Tests on Wednesday morning revealed a severe left knee sprain.
■CROATIA OPEN
AP, UMAG, CROATIA
Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko continued his winning streak by beating Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain 6-2, 6-2 in the first round of the Croatia Open on Wednesday.
He next plays Alberto Martin of Spain, who defeated Slovakian qualifier Martin Klizan 6-4, 6-4.
Second-seeded David Ferrer of Spain squandered a 6-1, 5-3 lead before defeating Daniel Koellerer of Austria, 6-1, 6-7 (2), 6-3, but third-seeded Viktor Troicki of Serbia — a semi-finalist in Umag in 2007 — lost to Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6).
The only remaining Croatian player, Ivan Ljubicic, scored his fourth victory in five clashes against Filippo Volandri, defeating the Italian 6-1, 6-4 in his first match since an ankle injury at Eastbourne last month.
Oscar Hernandez of Spain beat Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine 7-6 (3), 6-1, and Nicolas Massu of Chile topped wild card Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia 5-7, 6-3, 6-2.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with