While Juan Martin del Potro took another step in his comeback from wrist surgery, Gael Monfils pulled out of the SAP Open on Friday with his own wrist injury.
Monfils announced his withdrawal just hours after beating Tim Smyczek 6-4, 7-6 (8/6) to advance to the semi-finals. Del Potro also reached a semi-final for the first time since his wrist surgery in May last year, beating Lleyton Hewitt 6-2, 6-3.
Monfils originally hurt the wrist in the first round of the Australian Open last month against Thiemo de Bakker. He played two more matches in Melbourne and then came to San Jose, where he won his first three matches and beat Pete Sampras in an exhibition.
However, the wrist was still painful and limited him almost to slice shots on his backhand all week. He had an MRI on Monday, then was examined by tournament and French federation doctors on Friday, before making his decision.
Monfils will be sidelined for four to six weeks, pulling out of tournaments in Memphis, Acapulco and the Davis Cup.
The withdrawal sends Canadian Milos Raonic into his first career final after knocking off Richard Berankis 6-4, 7-6 (7/2). Raonic will play Ivo Karlovic in an exhibition on Saturday in place of his scheduled semi-final match.
Del Potro’s semi-final opponent will be defending champion and top-seeded Fernando Verdasco, who beat fifth-seeded Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-4.
Del Potro is trying to regain the form that helped him win the 2009 US Open and reach No. 4 in the rankings. Hewitt had no answer to del Potro’s powerful first serve in the first matchup in San Jose between former Grand Slam winners since Andre Agassi beat Michael Chang in the first round in 2003.
Raonic had six aces in each set against Berankis and saved the only break point he faced all match. The Canadian earned the only break of the match in the third game of the opening set and came up with two aces in the tiebreaker to advance.
Raonic has been the biggest mover on the tour rankings this season, going from 152nd at the end of last year to 84th entering this tournament. He is expected to be about 75th after this tournament.
Monfils survived a pair of set points in the second-set tiebreaker to win a hard-fought match against Smyczek that featured only one break of serve.
Monfils fought off two break points in the fifth game of the opening set, before coming up with the only break in the 10th game with help from a double fault by Smyczek on game point. Monfils won the first set when Smyczek hit a forehand long.
Smyczek then squandered four break-point chances in Monfils’ first two service games of the second set and fought his way into the tiebreaker in his first ATP Tour quarter-final.
Smyczek took a 6-4 lead on his serve, but hit a backhand long to lose the first set point. Monfils then hit a forehand passing shot that hit the line to even the tiebreaker and won the match when Smyczek hit a backhand volley into the net.
WORLD INDOOR
AFP, ROTTERDAM, Netherlands
Sweden’s Robin Soderling took a step closer to a title repeat at the ATP Rotterdam Open on Friday as he won a replay of last year’s final over Mikhail Youzhny.
The sixth-seeded Russian, who lifted the trophy in 2007, but lost to Soderling in last year’s title match, went down 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) in the quarter-finals.
Soderling, the two-time Roland Garros finalist, will next face Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, who defeated Marin Cilic of Croatia 7-5, 6-3.
“I’ve had to fight for all of my matches this week,” Soderling said. “I don’t know how I did it, the margins were so small. Against Mischa you have to fight, I felt strong in the important moments.”
Youzhny saved a match point in the 12th game of the second set, before Soderling closed out victory in the tiebreaker.
“The second set could have gone either way,” the Swede said. “I had to play well today and I did.”
Ivan Ljubicic needed 18 aces and two tiebreaks to post a win over Marcos Baghdatis, advancing 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/4) against the Cypriot.
Ljubicic, who played the 2005 final against Roger Federer at the Ahoy Stadium, renewed his long-ago promise to buy every fan in the stands a drink should he reach another Dutch title match and claim the victory.
“It’s a long way, but I’m sticking to my promise,” said the 15th-ranked Croatian, owner of 10 career titles and loser in four of five meetings with Baghdatis.
“But the stadium has 5,000 more seats than it did back then,” he joked in reference to an overhaul last year that added about 1,500 places to the hall.
Ljubicic is unworried by the extra rest time enjoyed by semi-final opponent Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who advanced without stepping onto court when fourth-seeded opponent Tomas Berdych retired before their match with influenza.
The Croatian won the first set against Baghdatis after overcoming a few early errors and profiting from miscues from his opponent.
“It was a strange match, I knew I had to take a lot of risks. I didn’t start great, but he gave me two double faults in the third game,” Ljubicic said. “In the second-set tiebreak I missed some shots that I should not have. It was a great win for me after losing four times before to him, it was nice to show my best tennis.”
BRAZIL OPEN
Reuters, COSTA DO SAUIPE, Brazil
Red-hot Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov reached his first ATP Tour final when he brushed aside Ricardo Mello 6-2, 6-1 in the Brazil Open on Friday.
The Australian Open quarter--finalist was scheduled to meet world No. 13 Nicolas Almagro in yesterday’s final after the Spanish top seed overcame Argentina’s Juan Ignacio Chela 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 in the other semi-final.
Top seed Almagro will be looking for his second Brazilian title after winning the tournament in 2008.
The 25-year-old has enjoyed considerable success on Latin America’s clay courts having also won the Mexican leg of the four-tournament circuit in 2008 and 2009.
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