Tomas Berdych and Juan Martin del Potro joined resting top seed Roger Federer in the Rotterdam Open quarter-finals on Thursday.
Second-seed Berdych advanced with only minimal effort, as opponent Marcos Baghdatis quit with a left-foot injury after 19 minutes on court while trailing 3-0 in their second-round match.
However, Del Potro, the No. 3 seed making his debut in Rotterdam, had a battle on his hands before he finally got past Slovak Karol Beck 6-4, 7-5.
Photo: AFP
On Wednesday, Federer moved easily into the last eight at the Ahoy Stadium when scheduled second-round opponent Mikhail Youzhny withdrew a day before their contest with a left-foot injury.
Federer still had to go out and win his opening match against Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, which he did, 6-4, 6-4.
Del Potro had to overcome a slight bloody nose which required a medical timeout early in the contest with Beck. Once that was sorted, it was back to work for the 2009 US Open champion, who advanced with nine aces — his last one earning two match points.
Del Potro needed almost two hours to move into a match against Serb seventh-seed Victor Troicki, who put out Jesse Huta Galung, the last local player left in the tournament.
Frenchman Richard Gasquet, seeded fifth, continued his steady progress at his second tournament appearance, defeating Russian Alex Bogomolov 6-3, 6-2, while Italy’s Andreas Seppi dispatched German Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-4, 6-2.
The 16th-ranked Gasquet improved his record to seven wins this season to next face Russian Nikolay Davydenko.
The Frenchman, with six career titles, went through to victory in just over 85 minutes, with four aces and four breaks of the Bogomolov serve.
BRAZIL OPEN
AP, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
Nicolas Almagro of Spain extended the defense of his Brazil Open title to the quarter-finals by defeating Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3 on Thursday.
Almagro, the top seed, did not allow a single break point to Hanescu in his victory at the Ibirapuera sporting complex. He had 12 aces and only one double fault in the second-round match which lasted more than two hours.
The 11th-ranked Almagro needed a wild card to defend his title, because he initially was not certain if he would make the tournament because of his Davis Cup duties with Spain. He also won the Brazil Open in 2008.
Second-seeded Gilles Simon of France failed to advance after a 6-3, 6-2 loss to David Nalbandian of Argentina. Ranked 12th in the world, Simon could not convert on any of his five break opportunities.
Third-seeded Fernando Verdasco of Spain struggled against countryman Javier Marti, but escaped with a 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 7-5 victory after saving triple match points against the 20-year-old Marti. Verdasco, a former No. 7 in the world who was playing his first match since the Australian Open, had six double faults, including four in the final set.
Also, fifth-seeded Carlos Berlocq of Argentina defeated Potito Starace of Italy 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, converting five of the 13 break points he got in the nearly two-hour match. Eighth-seeded Albert Ramos of Spain ousted big-server Igor Andreev of Russia 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/4).
Italian Filippo Volandri defeated Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo of Spain 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in two hours and nine minutes, while Leonardo Mayer of Argentina advanced by beating Jeremy Chardy of France 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.
Almagro is scheduled to face Berlocq in the quarter-finals, while Verdasco is set to play Ramos. Homecrowd favorite Thomaz Bellucci is to play Mayer and Nalbandian is scheduled to face Volandri.
SAP OPEN
AFP, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
Belgian Steve Darcis upset Czech fourth-seed Radek Stepanek 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/2) on Thursday to reach the quarter-finals of the SAP Open.
Darcis, ranked 72nd in the world, will next face French fifth seed Julien Benneteau, who ousted Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller 6-2, 6-4 in another second-round match at the indoor hardcourt event.
In his 10th professional season, 27-year-old Darcis is seeking his third ATP title, after a 2007 triumph in Amersfoort and a 2008 victory in Memphis.
French top-seed Gael Monfils withdrew with a right-knee injury and was replaced by US lucky loser Blake Strode, who was eliminated by Bulgarian Dimitar Kutrovsky 7-5, 6-3.
South African sixth seed Kevin Anderson dispatched Australian Matthew Ebden 6-1, 6-2 to book a quarter-final date against defending champion and third seed Milos Raonic of Canada.
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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