Seeded Frenchmen Gilles Simon and Richard Gasquet both won in straight sets on Wednesday to reach the Open Sud de France quarter-finals.
The second-seeded Simon fired nine aces and saved four break points in his 6-3, 6-2 win against Flavio Cipolla of Italy, while the fourth-seeded Gasquet broke Nikolay Davydenko three times in a 6-3, 6-4 victory.
Davydenko led 40-15 on serve in the 10th game of the second set, but Gasquet took a forehand early to pass Davydenko, who next hit an unforced error and watched as Gasquet dispatched a volley to get to his first match point.
Photo: EPA
Gasquet, who reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, sealed victory on his fifth match point after a long baseline rally ended with the Russian slicing a forehand wide.
Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, seeded No. 7, dropped serve twice, but served 10 aces to beat Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-4, 7-5.
Guillaume Rufin of France also advanced after a 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 win over fifth-seeded Feliciano Lopez of Spain.
Rufin hit 16 aces compared with 13 for Lopez, who lost his serve twice in the second set.
ZAGREB INDOORS
AP, ZAGREB
Michael Berrer of Germany upset top-seeded Ivan Ljubicic 6-4, 6-4 on Wednesday to advance to the quarter-finals of the Zagreb Indoors tournament.
Berrer, last year’s finalist, had little trouble as shown by him breaking back immediately in the second set after dropping serve for the only time in the match.
Defending champion Ivan Dodig defeated Marsel Ilhan of Turkey 7-6 (7/5), 7-5, and later said he wasn’t concerned by the back injury that forced his retirement in the first round of the Australian Open.
Jurgen Melzer of Austria upset fifth-seeded Andreas Seppi 6-2, 6-3 for a spot in the quarter-finals.
Seventh-seeded Robin Haase from the Netherlands also advanced after beating Matthias Bachinger from Germany 7-6 (7/4), 3-6, 6-3.
In the remaining first-round matches, Slovenian wild card Grega Zemlja beat Croat Antonio Veic 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (8/6), Dudi Sela of Israel defeated Andreas Beck of Germany 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain ousted Daviel Evans of Britain 6-4, 1-6, 6-1.
VINA DEL MAR VTR OPEN
AP, VINA DEL MAR, CHILE
Frederico Gil of Portugal upset fourth-seeded Pablo Andujar of Spain 6-2, 6-1 in the second round of the Vina del Mar VTR Open on Wednesday.
Gil advanced to a quarter-final against France’s Jeremy Chardy, who beat Leonardo Mayer of Argentina 7-5, 6-2 in the claycourt event.
Top-seeded Juan Monaco of Argentina breezed past Igor Andreev of Russia 6-2, 6-1, setting up a quarter-final against fifth-seeded Spaniard Albert Montanes, who defeated qualifier Rogerio Dutra Silva of Brazil 7-5, 6-2.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
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