Roger Federer and Andy Murray moved toward a likely showdown at the Cincinnati Masters on Thursday while Rafa Nadal took another encouraging step on his return from injury by joining them in the quarter-finals.
Fourth seed Novak Djokovic also reached the last eight with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Jeremy Chardy of France.
One more win each and Federer and Murray will be squaring up to each other in the semi-finals.
PHOTO: AFP
On Thursday, they enjoyed very different paths through to the last eight.
Swiss world No. 1 Federer had to come from 3-1 down in the final set to beat Spaniard David Ferrer 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, while No. 2 Murray hammered Czech Radek Stepanek 6-4, 6-1.
Ferrer had won just one set in eight previous meetings with Federer but it was the top seed whose game was all over the place early on.
PHOTO: AP
A blustery wind caused both players trouble but after trading early breaks world No. 19 Ferrer broke again in the eighth game and served out for the opening set.
Federer pulled himself together in the second set to level the match but a real surprise looked possible when he was broken and trailed 3-1 in the decider.
He broke back immediately and from that point on there was only going to be one winner, with a beautiful backhand topspin lob sealing the vital break in the eighth game.
“I didn’t think I was going to [turn it around] because I thought David was playing a great match,” Federer said. “I think at the beginning maybe my footwork was just a touch off. After that I think I got it together and started to play better and better.”
In the quarter-finals, Federer will play former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt after the Australian saw off American Sam Querrey 6-1, 2-6, 6-3.
Title-holder Murray was on top of his game as he destroyed the hopes of world No. 17 Stepanek in just 76 minutes.
The Czech recovered from 5-2 down to get back on serve at 5-4, but Murray broke again to win the set thanks to a stunning top-spin lob on the run, before blitzing through the second.
“I started the match very well, serving well and not giving him any chances,” Murray said. “Then the wind picked up at the end of the first set and he managed to break me. But I played a good game to break back. Had a couple of good returns and obviously a lob to finish with was nice. After that, I started to feel a lot better but it was tough conditions, very, very windy.”
Murray will play Julien Benneteau in the last eight after the Frenchman became only the third lucky loser to reach the quarter-finals of a tournament since tennis turned professional in 1968, beating Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 4-6, 6-4, 7-6.
In just his second event after two months out with knee injuries, Nadal recovered from a slow start to beat Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-5, 6-2 in the night match.
Mathieu produced an early onslaught as he surged ahead 4-1 but Nadal bounced back superbly to win five of the next six games and take the set.
After a tight start to the second, Nadal broke in the fourth game and again in the sixth on his way to victory and a quarter-final against Czech Tomas Berdych, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over Australian qualifier Chris Guccione.
Djokovic will play ninth seed Gilles Simon after the Frenchman edged out eighth seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.
■ROGERS CUP
AFP, TORONTO
Second-seeded Serena Williams eased into the quarter-finals of the US$2 million WTA hardcourt tournament in Toronto on Thursday with a straight sets victory over Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko.
Williams, the reigning Wimbledon, Australian Open and US Open champion, needed only 64 minutes to subdue Bondarenko 6-1, 6-4.
The American exacted a bit of familial revenge after third-seeded Venus Williams was eliminated in the second round by Alona’s sister, Kateryna Bondarenko.
“I was just trying to be perfect and I couldn’t get my serve in and got frustrated [in the second set],” said Williams. “I’ve been practicing a lot on my serve. It just hasn’t been well.”
Kateryna Bondarenko’s run came to an end on Thursday at the hands of 14th-seeded Pole Agnieszka Radwanska.
Radwanska was up 7-5, 5-3 and 40-0 when rain stopped play, and when the match resumed she duly finished off a 7-5, 6-3 victory.
In the quarters, she’ll face former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova, who shrugged off a rain delay to oust seventh-seeded fellow Russian Vera Zvonareva 6-2, 7-6 (7/3).
“I thought it was a step up, definitely,” said Sharapova, who is battling back after a shoulder injury sidelined her for 10 months. “I had to [play] against somebody that I’ve had trouble against in the past who I usually play three sets against. It was good to finish the match in two, but I really had no choice. I had to pick it up.”
Zvonareva appeared poised to turn the tables when she won four straight games in the second set.
“I think this is definitely a great result,” Sharapova said. “I’ve already played against three great opponents and I’m going to play another opponent tomorrow and you just hope that with each match you can raise your level and play better.”
Another comeback kid, Kim Clijsters, was unable to build on an early lead, getting off to a fast start against Jelena Jankovic before the fifth-seeded Serb-winner last week in Cincinnati steadied to win 1-6, 6-3, 7-5.
In the quarter-finals Jankovic will take on Russian Alisa Kleybanova. Kleybanova toppled giant killer Aravane Rezai 6-3, 6-4, a day after Rezai dispatched world number one Dinara Safina.
Fourth-seed Russian Elena Dementieva, the 2008 Olympic gold medallist, beat Israeli Shahar Peer 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
In the quarter-finals Dementieva will face Australian Samantha Stosur, a 6-3, 6-1 winner over France’s Virginie Razzano.
Czech qualifier Lucie Safarova booked a shot at Williams with a 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 victory over China’s Zheng Jie.
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