Sweden’s Patrik Rosenholm stunned defending champion Gael Monfils 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 on Tuesday to advance to the second round of the Swedish Open.
The Frenchman appeared to be held back by a knee problem that sidelined him for several months this year as he dropped the last set to the Swede, ranked world No. 436.
Earlier on Tuesday, Lleyton Hewitt advanced by beating Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus was down 3-1 in the first set, but rallied to beat David Goffin of Belgium 6-4, 6-2, and Spain’s Feliciano Lopez hit 26 aces as he defeated Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (4/7), 6-2 .
Erste Bank Open
AP, VIENNA
Grega Zemlja of Slovenia rallied to defeat Xavier Malisse of Belgium 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) on Tuesday in the first round of the Erste Bank Open. Zemlja failed to serve out the match at 6-5 in the third set, but converted his second match point in the tie breaker against the eighth-seeded Malisse, who reached the quarter-finals last year.
Paolo Lorenzi of Italy beat No. 7 Benoit Paire of France 6-4, 6-4. None of the three seeded players in action so far reached the second round after No. 6 Robin Haase lost his opener on Monday.
Jesse Levine of the US defeated Lukasz Kubot of Poland 6-3, 6-4, and Daniel Brands of Germany beat Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-3.
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
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