Rafael Nadal spent just 36 minutes in his comeback from a two-and-a-half-month injury absence as David Ferrer retired hurt while trailing 4-3 in their second-round match at the Montreal Masters on Wednesday.
The result was an anti-climax for world No. 2 Nadal, who has been resting tendinitis-plagued knees ever since losing on May 31 at the French Open.
“I must be happy, because I didn’t play terrible,” the second seed said. “In the next round, I have another chance to continue to improve. Every match, every game is important to feel better for me. My knees felt OK, but I need more days to have [a] real test.”
PHOTO: AP
Nadal, the defending champion, drew massive applause as he went onto the court with his fellow Spaniard and showed few outward signs of rust after his long absence.
Ferrer, playing with one knee taped and visited twice by the trainer, started poorly with a double fault and lost the opening game, setting a tone for Nadal. Nadal, the four-time French Open champion who had to sit out Wimbledon because of his troublesome knees, yesterday faced a date with German Philipp Petzschner, who upset Spain’s Tommy Robredo 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (7/4).
Fifth-seeded Wimbledon finalist Andy Roddick opened against Russian Igor Andreev, with the American carving out a patchy 6-1, 7-6 (7/3) win.
“Not perfect, but, you know, obviously I’ll take the win,” the world No. 5 said.
Washington champion and sixth seed Juan Martin Del Potro beat Czech Jan Hernych 6-2, 7-5.
Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero moved into a third-round showdown with world No. 3 Andy Murray for the third time since June and will hope to reverse his fortunes after two losses to the Scot.
Ferrero felled French 13th seed Gael Monfils 6-3, 7-6 (9/7) to notch his 30th victory of the season.
■CINCINNATI OPEN
AP, MASON, OHIO
Playing her second competitive match in more than two years, Kim Clijsters reached the third round of the Western & Southern Financial Group Open with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Patty Schnyder on Wednesday.
Clijsters who retired in May 2007 and gave birth to a daughter in February last year, knocked out 12th-seeded Marion Bartoli in straight sets on Monday. The 2005 US Open champion followed up by never losing her serve against the 20th-ranked Schnyder.
The 26-year-old Clijsters is scheduled to meet sixth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova in the next round, with a possible quarter-final looming against top-seeded Dinara Safina. Clijsters has won six of her seven matches against Kuznetsova.
Second-seeded Serena Williams had 14 aces, nine in the second set, on her way to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine.
Unseeded Melinda Czink of Hungary and Sybille Bammer of Austria turned in the day’s only upsets. Czink knocked off 11th-seeded and former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic 7-6 (6), 7-5, and Bammer eliminated 13th-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-0, 7-5.
Fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva also advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium as seeded players swept almost all of the other second-round matches. Only No. 7-seeded Vera Zvonareva and eighth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki dropped sets. Zvonareva beat fellow Russian Alisa Kleybanova 6-4, 1-6, 7-5, and Wozniacki came from behind to pull out a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada.
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