Michael Russell won the first match of the pre-US Open summer hard-court season on Monday, starting the ATP Atlanta Championships with a 6-0, 6-3 thrashing of fellow American Donald Young.
Russell, 33, won his first main-draw match since early last month at Queen’s Club with his 72-minute hammering of one-time prodigy Young.
Russell advanced on the first of three match points in steamy, hot conditions after breaking the hapless Young five times.
He will next play South African second seed Kevin Anderson, a semi-finalist in the event’s inaugural edition last year. The 123rd-ranked Young lost his 10th match of the season.
The defending champion, American Mardy Fish, is top seed as he returns from a week of rest due to a lingering abdominal muscle strain. Fish beat Wimbledon marathon man John Isner in last year’s final.
Fish joked on Monday that North Carolina-born Isner, who went to university in Georgia before moving onto the ATP, is a favorite almost everywhere he goes in the US.
“The guy has 10 hometowns,” said Fish, who starts today after a bye awarded to the leading four seeds. “He’s from everywhere.”
Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller eliminated the week’s first seed as he put out No. 7 Alex Bogomolov of the US 6-3, 7-6 (8/6).
Second seed Isner is pleased to be back in his southern heartland after winning a grass title a week ago in Newport.
He makes his hard-court start against James Blake, who beat Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 5-7, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2.
“I don’t really care what surface it’s on so I’m coming to this event with the most confidence I’ve had all year,” said the big man, who set a record with the longest match ever at Wimbledon last year against Nicolas Mahut.
“Up to last week, the year had been a disappointment, so it was good to get that win under my belt. It takes a lot of pressure off, so I can go out there and free up and just play,” Isner said.
In other matches on Monday, Japan’s Tatsuma Ito defeated Michael Berrer of Germany 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 and Somdev Devvarman of India beat Ryan Sweeting of the US 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
GERMAN OPEN
AP, HAMBURG, GERMANY
Three German players defeated higher-ranked opponents on Monday to advance to the second round of the German Open.
Qualifier Bastian Knittel beat Ivan Dodig of Croatia 6-4, 6-3 for his first tour-level victory of the year.
Wild-card Tobias Kamke, the ATP Newcomer of the Year last year, routed Pere Riba 6-1, 6-1 and he is now 2-0 against the Spaniard.
Julian Riester beat Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-3, 6-4 to avenge last year’s defeat in the third round in Hamburg.
Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic beat Potito Starace of Italy 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 and Jarkko Nieminen of Finland defeated Santiago Giraldo of Colombia 6-4, 6-3.
Also advancing to the second round were Albert Ramos of Spain, Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine, Carlos Berlocq of Argentina and Victor Crivoi of Romania.
The 16 seeded players, led by No. 1 Gael Monfils, all had byes into the second round.
BAKU CUP
AP, BAKU
Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan brushed aside Sofia Shapatava of Georgia 6-0, 6-0 on Monday in the first round of the inaugural Baku Cup.
Voskoboeva never faced a break point and lost just four points on her first serve, wrapping up the victory in 54 minutes on the outdoor hard-court of the Baku Tennis Academy.
Vesna Dolonts of Russia also advanced by defeating Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-3, 6-3, while sixth-seeded Elena Baltacha of Britain lost 6-1, 7-5 to another Ukrainian, Mariya Koryttseva.
Top-seeded Vera Zvonareva was set to play her first match yesterday.
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