Rafa Nadal described his stunning semi-final loss to Ivan Ljubicic on Saturday as an “accident”, and felt he had been playing close to his best at the Indian Wells ATP tournament.
The Spanish world number three was upset 3-6, 6-4 ,7-6 by the big-serving Croat at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden after he had squandered three break points in the sixth game of the second set to lead 4-2.
“That was an accident today,” Nadal told reporters after failing in his bid to win a third title at Indian Wells in four years. “That’s my feeling, because I was playing [well] enough to win the tournament.”
“It was an important accident, and I have to learn to try to play more aggressive next time, try to convert the opportunities,” he said.
“But for the rest, nothing to say, no? I was feeling I was playing better than probably ever on this court,” the left-handed Spaniard said.
Nadal was playing his first tournament on the ATP circuit since shaking off the knee injury that forced him to abandon his Australian Open title defense in January.
Ljubicic, who turned 31 on Friday, was due to compete for his first Masters 1000 title in yesterday’s final against Andy Roddick, who held off a fightback by Swede Robin Soderling to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Seventh-seeded Roddick reached the final at Indian Wells for the first time in four attempts after holding off sixth-seeded Soderling in one hour 46 minutes.
“I definitely would love to win this,” Roddick said. “This is probably the only real big tournament in North America that I haven’t won.”
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
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