Top-seeded David Ferrer of Spain began his defense of the Copa Claro title with a comfortable 6-4, 6-1 victory over Argentine wild card Agustin Velotti on Wednesday.
Ferrer, ranked No. 4, is a strong favorite to win his second tournament of the young season. He won in Auckland, New Zealand, last month.
Ferrer got off to a 4-1 lead, only to have Velotti win three straight games to level. Ferrer won the last two and swept through the second set.
In another first-round match postponed from Tuesday because of rain in the Argentine capital, David Nalbandian defeated fellow Argentine Carlos Berlocq 6-3, 2-6, 6-3. Also, sixth-seeded Fabio Fognini defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5, 6-3.
Nalbandian, who also came through windy conditions and the threat of rain, would face Ferrer yesterday in the second round.
The first few days of the tournament in Buenos Aires have been poorly attended, hurt by bad weather and the absence of a top-name player like Rafael Nadal.
Meanwhile, top-seeded Tomas Berdych struggled past Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 6-4, 6-7 (8/10), 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals of the Open 13 in Marseille on Wednesday.
Berdych withstood 19 aces from Gulbis in his second-round opener.
He was joined by third-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 2009 champion, who eased past Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (7/1), 6-3.
Tsonga is to meet Bernard Tomic of Australia, who also won in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5, against Somdev Devvarman of India.
Gilles Muller, who upset fifth-seeded Richard Gasquet in the first round, defeated Marcel Granollers 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/1).
Sixth-seeded Gilles Simon won his first-round match beating Robin Haase of the Netherlands 7-5, 7-5.
Also advancing were fellow Frenchman Julien Benneteau and Russia’s Dmitry Tursunov.
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