Sam Querrey beat Alejandro Falla for the second time in less than a week, defeating the Colombian 6-3, 6-3 in a first-round match at the US National Indoor Championships on Tuesday.
Querrey, who won the Memphis title three years ago, hammered six aces and won 74 percent of his first-serve points as he needed just 58 minutes to eliminate Falla.
Fourth seed Querrey also defeated Falla in the quarter-finals of the San Jose tournament on Friday last week.
Photo: EPA
Querrey, who is the No. 2 ranked American on the ATP Tour, advances to the second round where he faces the winner of a match between Japan’s Go Soeda and Marinko Matosevic of Australia.
Defending champion Jurgen Melzer crashed out of the joint ATP and WTA tournament, losing his opening-round match in straight sets at the Racquet Club of Memphis.
The left-handed Austrian lost to Dutchman Igor Sijsling 6-4, 7-6 (7/3).
Sijsling advanced to a second-round match against Croatian top seed Marin Cilic.
Melzer, who was playing with a broken toe, defeated Milos Raonic in last year’s final.
In the late match, Japanese fifth seed Kei Nishikori cruised past Ilya Marchenko 6-4, 7-5.
American veteran James Blake defeated German Florian Mayer 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
In the women’s singles tournament, Slovakian seventh seed Magdalena Rybarikova reached the third round by ousting Lauren Davis of the US 7-6 (7/2), 6-2.
France’s Claire Feuerstein upset Czech fifth seed Lucie Hradecka 6-3, 6-4, while German third seed Sabine Lisicki reached the second round with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Madison Keys of the US.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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