The Kremlin Cup suffered a double blow on Wednesday when top-seed Nikolay Davydenko was beaten in his opening match, while champion Mikhail Youzhny was forced to pull out with a virus infection.
Davydenko, who like Russian compatriot Youzhny had a bye in the first round, lost his opening match for the second week in a row, going down to Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 7-6, 7-6.
Wednesday’s double setback has added to the disappointments of the home crowd and local organizers of the annual ATP and WTA tournament that had been decimated by the withdrawals of high-profile players, particularly on the women’s side.
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Russians Vera Zvonareva, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Maria Sharapova and last year’s champion Francesca Schiavone all pulled out.
Serbia’s eighth-seed Janko Tipsarevic, who lost to Youzhny in last year’s final, was bundled out in the first round on Wednesday by Horacio Zeballos 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
On the women’s side, second-seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat Germany’s Andrea Petkovic 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 and eighth-seeded Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez saw off Ukraine’s Alona Bondarenko 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 to reach the last eight.
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Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen swept past a below-par Tomas Berdych 6-1, 6-4 on Wednesday to make it through to the quarter-finals of the Stockholm Open.
No. 6 Berdych lost seven consecutive games at one point against a player ranked 39 places lower, and whom he had beaten in four previous encounters.
Backed by a supportive crowd at the Royal Tennis Hall, Nieminen got off to a fast start and broke third-seeded Berdych twice to take the first set.
Nieminen then took a 2-0 lead at the start of the second, and played some inspired tennis, including a laser-guided backhand pass in the fifth game that Czech-born Berdych could only watch.
Fifth-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka also advanced, the Swiss hitting 12 aces on the way to beating Robin Haase of the Netherlands in a marathon two-and-and-a-half-hour three-setter 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-4.
Wawrinka recovered from a shaky start, coming back to break Haase twice in the last three games of the first set.
Both players held serve in the second, with Haase eventually prevailing after a closely fought tie-break.
In the quarter-finals, Wawrinka will meet the winner of yesterday’s match between compatriot Roger Federer and American Taylor Dent.
In the remaining first-round matches, Matthias Bachinger of Germany beat Poland’s Lukasz Kubot in three sets 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, and countryman Tobias Kamke defeated Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-2.
Florian Mayer of Germany beat Sweden’s Michael Ryderstedt in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 on center court in the last match of the day.
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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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