Top seed Juan Martin del Potro was scheduled to face qualifier Grega Zemlja for the Austrian Open title yesterday after the Slovenian world No. 70 stunned Serb second seed Janko Tipsarevic in Saturday’s semi-finals.
Argentina’s Del Potro reached his second consecutive final in the Austrian capital as he defeated Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/5) in a duel which featured 33 aces.
Meanwhile, Zemlja pounced on an injured Tipsarevic to win 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 in just over two-and-a-half hours in his first career semi-final.
Tipsarevic began feeling an old injury in his right shoulder in the second set as Zemlja climbed back into the contest.
The Serb was unable to stop his inspired opponent’s momentum, as Zemlja won the second set after Tipsarevic gifted a double-fault for two set points.
In the third, Zemlja went up two breaks and earned the biggest win of his career on a second match point as a Tipsarevic forehand clipped the top of the net.
“I played a great match, it was really difficult in front of such a big stadium filled with people,” the winner said. “It was very emotional for me, it felt super.”
Zemlja had knocked out Tommy Haas in the quarter-finals for his first top-20 win and will now play his first final after winning his debut ATP semi-final.
Yesterday’s final would be the second consecutive year that the 2009 US Open champion gets a chance to lift the Vienna title, having gone down in last year’s final to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
“I’m showing a good level, but I still need to improve. I’m playing well, but you can always play better,” said Del Potro, the holder of 11 ATP titles, the last of which came on clay at Estoril in May. “Being in a final means a lot for me after a month without playing.”
Del Potro’s win on Saturday was his 56th of the season against 14 losses.
Stockholm Open
AFP, STOCKHOLM
Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will look to avenge last week’s Shanghai Masters quarter-final loss against Tomas Berdych in the Stockholm Open final, after beating Marcos Baghdatis 6-4, 4-6, 5-2.
The top seed advanced to the final after beating 2009 champion Baghdatis, but only after the Cypriot retired because of a left-groin strain.
Czech world No. 6 Berdych defeated Spain’s Nicolas Almagro in just 69 minutes without facing a single break point, 6-3, 6-2.
Tsonga, ranked world No. 7, and Berdych will both be gunning for a spot in the ATP World Tour Finals next month at the O2 Arena in London.
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