Slovakian world No. 45 Martin Klizan captured his first ATP title on Sunday when he defeated Italy’s Fabio Fognini 6-2, 6-3 in the final of the St Petersburg Open. He is the first Slovakian to win a tour title since Dominik Hrbaty triumphed at Marseille in February 2004.
Third-seeded Klizan, who put out top seed Mikhail Youzhny in a marathon semi-final on Saturday, is set to rise to around a career-high world No. 33 in the world rankings as a result of his victory.
Until two months ago, 23-year-old Klizan had never won back-to-back tour-level matches.
However, since the end of July he has reached the semi-finals in Kitzbuhel and knocked out world No. 7 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga en route to a fourth-round showing at the US Open.
“I said last year that I would like to be Top 100 by the end of this year and I’ve already done it,” Klizan said. “Now I’ve been Top 50, Top 40, maybe I can be Top 30 at the end of the year. I hope I can be healthy and still with enough power to play until the end of the season.”
The 25-year-old Fognini was contesting his second final having also finished runner-up to Gilles Simon in Bucharest.
“It’s horrible to play a final like this,” Fognini said. “I’ve played two finals this year. Simon in Bucharest was a really great final. On the court today he played his best tennis ever and I did not play my best tennis for sure.”
MOSELLE OPEN
AP, METZ, FRANCE
Top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France thrashed fifth-seeded Andreas Seppi 6-1, 6-2 on Sunday to retain his Moselle Open title.
The seventh-ranked Tsonga needed just 50 minutes to see off Seppi’s challenge, breaking the Italian’s serve four times.
Tsonga’s own serve never looked like being broken as he won 85-percent of his service points.
He won nine games in a row to take a 4-0 lead in the second set.
“I had a complete match, but I remained focused because a match is never closed against a player like that,” Tsonga said.
It is Tsonga’s second title of the year, after the Qatar Open in January, and boosts his chances of reaching the year-ending ATP finals in London.
The NBA said was re-evaluating its training program in China following allegations of abuse of young players by local staff and harassment of foreign staffers at a facility in Xinjiang. The comments come after a report by ESPN that quoted unnamed American coaches as saying that Chinese coaches hit young players. One American coach who worked at a camp in Xinjiang complained of harassment by local police, the sports network said. “The allegations in the ESPN article are disturbing,” NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said in an e-mail statement on Thursday. “We ended our involvement with the basketball academy in Xinjiang in June
Coming from the business world, New York Liberty owner Joe Tsai (蔡崇信) did not understand why his WNBA franchise did not have a chief executive officer similar to the team’s NBA counterpart the Brooklyn Nets, which Tsai also owns. For Tsai, it was about equality, so he did something about it. The 56-year-old Taipei-born billionaire businessman and philanthropist promoted Keia Clarke to the position last week — making her the first chief executive officer in the team’s history. The WNBA veteran became the third black woman to currently be in charge of a franchise in the league, joining Los Angeles Sparks president
LEAVING IT LATE: Rakuten added late runs last night to add to wins on Wednesday against the Brothers and the Lions on Friday that went down to the last batter The Rakuten Monkeys rallied to post three late runs for another close win, prevailing 5-3 over the Uni-President Lions yesterday as Taiwan’s second-half CPBL season got started with lower scoring output, but exciting finishes. It was Rakuten’s third win in a row. In two games this week, they seized victory in dramatic fashion with their last at-bat and have drawn level with the CTBC Brothers on top of the table after yesterday’s results, 0.5 games in front of the Fubon Guardians and 1.5 games ahead of the Lions. It was tied at 1-1 early, with Rakuten hosting the Lions at the Taoyuan Intenational
MONEY MATTERS: While COVID-19 played a major role in the decision, the CTBA also found it hard to secure sponsorship, and ticket sales would have been affected The Yonex Taipei Open badminton tournament has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a funding shortfall, the CTBA said yesterday. This was the first time that the tournament, a Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 300-level competition, has been canceled since it began in 1980. The Taipei Open has been held annually since 1980. The tournament was to be played at the Taipei Arena from Sept. 1 to Sept. 6, with total prize money of US$500,000. The CTBA said that it was deeply concerned about whether the Taipei Open would proceed as scheduled after the BWF announced changes
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