Roger Federer closed on a first ever Paris Masters final when he beat Richard Gasquet to reach the quarter-finals on Thursday, after Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray had swept into the last eight.
Federer, the third seed, broke the home favorite in the opening service game of their evening match at Bercy Arena and secured another break when Gasquet double-faulted at 2-4 down, before clinching the set with a nonchalant volley.
After an early exchange of breaks in the second set, Federer broke again and went on to complete a 6-2, 6-4 victory with an inside-out forehand winner on his first match point.
“I feel very good,” said Federer, who has reached the final of every Masters tournament except the one in the French capital.
“It’s always at the end of the season and you’ve played a lot of tennis. In the past, I’ve maybe not come in with the best possible preparation,” he said. “The draws are really difficult here and it’s not so simple to cruise to a final. I hope I can make it this year.”
Federer will meet Juan Monaco in the last eight, after the unseeded Argentine survived two match points against US seventh seed Mardy Fish, who was forced to retire with a hamstring injury when leading 6-1, 6-7 (6/8), 2-1.
Djokovic overcame a first-set wobble to beat Serbian countryman Viktor Troicki 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
The world No. 1 was broken twice in the first set and folded on Troicki’s first set point when he drove a backhand into the net.
Djokovic went 2-0 up in the second set, only for Troicki to level, but the top seed broke again to go 4-2 ahead with a cross-court backhand winner before leveling the match.
Troicki had lost his last nine encounters with Djokovic and the 15th seed’s resistance broke apart in the third set, enabling the 2009 champion here to complete his comeback and take his place in the last eight.
“It was a difficult match,” said Djokovic, whose participation in the tournament had been threatened by the recurrence of a shoulder problem.
“I still wasn’t maybe where I’d want to be with my shoulder, but I pulled out a good performance in the end,” he said.
Djokovic was scheduled to meet sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 2008 champion, for a place in the semi-finals after the Frenchman overcame Italy’s Andreas Seppi 6-3, 6-4. However, the Serb announced yesterday that he was withdrawing from the tournament.
In-form Murray made it 18 games unbeaten with an impressive 6-2, 6-2 win over Andy Roddick that took just 62 minutes and reduced the US No. 13 seed to angrily smashing his racquet half-way through the second set.
Murray, the second seed, will now face Czech fifth seed and 2005 champion Tomas Berdych, who beat 11th-seeded Serbian Janko Tipsarevic in straight sets.
Tipsarevic’s defeat means the line-up for the year-end ATP Tour Finals in London has now been finalized, with Berdych, Tsonga and Fish claiming the three places that were up for grabs at the start of the week.
Fish’s withdrawal against Monaco means he faces a race against time to get fit for the start of the Nov. 20 event, but he said he would be prepared to play regardless of the condition of his hamstring.
Spanish fourth seed David Ferrer continued his progress to the last eight by winning 6-3, 6-2 against Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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