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.
Japan is the home of judo, but a brutal win-at-all-costs mentality, corporal punishment and pressure to lose weight are driving large numbers of children to quit, raising fears for the sport’s future in its traditional powerhouse. Underlining the scale of the problem, the All Japan Judo Federation canceled a prestigious nationwide tournament for children as young as 10, saying that they were being pushed too hard. A group dedicated to those injured or killed while practicing the martial art says 121 judo-related deaths were reported in Japanese schools between 1983 and 2016. Japan dominates the Olympics judo medal table, but federation president Yasuhiro
Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim on Tuesday praised US professional basketball player Enes Kanter Freedom for his advocacy of human rights. “An honor to meet @EnesFreedom, with admiration for his courage and commitment in advocating human rights,” Hsiao wrote in a post on Twitter that included a photograph of her posing with Freedom. “Looking forward to welcoming him to Taiwan in the future.” Hsiao did not give any information about her meeting with Freedom, who is currently a free agent. However, Legislator Hung Sun-han wrote on Facebook that Hsiao had invited Freedom to dinner at Twin Oaks, the former residence of Taiwan’s
RE-EVALUATION: ‘I hope that everyone is able to compete and as long as they are finding a way to do that then I am happy,’ US swimmer Alex Walsh said of the policy Swimming is to establish an “open category” to allow transgender athletes to compete as part of a new policy that would effectively ban them from women’s races. “I do not want any athlete to be told they cannot compete at the highest level,” Husain al-Musallam, president of governing body FINA, told an extraordinary congress of his organization. “I understand why transgender athletes want to compete in the gender of their choice ... but we should not favor one athlete over another,” he said. “I will set up a working group that will establish an open category at some of our biggest events.” He
World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev on Thursday lost to Roberto Bautista Agut in the quarter-finals of the Mallorca Open, while second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to the last four. Medvedev was beaten 6-3, 6-2 by Bautista Agut, who avenged his defeat by the Russian in last week’s quarter-finals in Halle, Germany. “I had to play very good to beat Daniil. He’s the number one, the last champion here in Mallorca. He just beat me a few days ago. I played a really complete match,” Bautista Agut said. Bautista Agut broke Medvedev once in the first set and twice in the second as he