Mardy Fish opened his ATP Atlanta title defense Thursday with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over France’s Nicolas Mahut that put the top-seeded American into the quarter-finals.
Fish, who enjoyed a first-round bye, fired six aces and broke Mahut four times to finish off the second-round clash in less than 90 minutes.
Fish showed no ill effects from an abdominal muscle strain which had bothered him since the French Open.
Photo: AFP
The world No. 9 will play on Friday for a semi-final spot against eighth-seeded Indian Somdev Devvarman, who booked his first quarter-final since late in April with a 6-1, 6-3 defeat of Japan’s Tatsuma Ito.
Fish won four straight games in the second set, before dropping his serve, immediately breaking back.
“That break-back was good, I was able to snatch the momentum,” he said. “It was the first match back on outdoor hardcourt.”
“You always feel a bit of pressure coming back to place where you’ve had success,” the 29-year-old added. “I’m happy just to move on, it’s only going to get tougher from now on. The first match is always tricky. He’s a tough opponent who serves well and plays aggressive.”
Fish was joined in the last eight by 19-year-old compatriot Ryan Harrison, who waited out the evening weather delay to beat Belgian Xavier Malisse, the fourth seed, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 6-4. The last few games were played after a thunderstorm halted play for nearly three hours.
Two-time Grand Slam winner Lleyton Hewitt, his ranking down to 174th, lost to Rajeev Ram of the US 7-5, 2-6, 6-2. Ram, a qualifier, will line up against Harrison in the quarters.
Harrison said that he and Malisse exchanged choice words on a changeover after the weather delay, following back-to-back breaks of serve.
“When I broke him back he said some things that I wasn’t too happy with. So I said some things back,” he said. “It was the heat of the moment. We both want to win. I like it when it gets intense, the competitive drive sparks me, it’s an added motivation, but whoever wins will always get the last laugh.”
The tournament is the ATP’s first stop in the six-week US hardcourt build-up to the US Open, the final Grand Slam of the year that starts in New York on Aug. 29.
GERMAN OPEN
AP, HAMBURG, GERMANY
Second-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria swept into the quarter-finals of the German Open on Thursday by beating 15th-seeded Fabio Fognini of Italy 6-2, 6-3.
Melzer was runner-up in Hamburg last year.
Fourth-seeded Mikhail Youzhny of Russia beat German wild-card Julian Reister 6-3, 6-3 and will next face No. 12 Marin Cilic of Croatia. Cilic rallied to beat wild-card Tobias Kamke of Germany 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Fifth-seeded Gilles Simon of France outlasted Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 7-6 (7/4), 3-6, 6-4.
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