Reigning US Open champs Andy Murray and Serena Williams stepped up their bids for another title, while China’s Li Na halted the giant-killing run of a Spanish teen to advance at the Miami Masters on Monday.
Second seed Murray blasted nine aces en route to a 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 victory over disgruntled Grigor Dimitrov to reach the fourth round of the hardcourt tournament.
Murray, who won this event four years ago, needed 1 hour, 54 minutes to oust the 29th-seeded Bulgarian Dimitrov.
Photo: AFP
Murray said he started slowly, but soon figured out how to cause problems for his opponent.
“I was leaving the ball a bit short. Once I started to improve my depth a bit, I made it tough for him and he started to make other mistakes after that,” Murray said.
Dimitrov, last year’s runner-up to Novak Djokovic, would have faced a tougher task had not the 21-year-old lost his composure when serving for the first set at 5-3.
Dimitrov double-faulted three times to allow Murray to break back and the Scot duly prevailed in the tie-break.
It is the second time in as many tournaments that Dimitrov has cracked when serving for a set against a top-ranked player, serving up four double faults when he led world No. 1 Djokovic 5-3 in the third round at Indian Wells.
“He probably got a little bit nervous, and that helped me,” Murray said.
Murray, who committed 22 unforced errors to Dimitrov’s 38, will face Italian Andrea Seppi in the fourth round, the 16th seed having beaten experienced Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.
Meanwhile, French eighth seed Richard Gasquet rolled over 28th-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-4 and 10th-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro beat Belgian David Goffin 6-3, 6-4. Gasquet faces Almagro in the fourth round.
Sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, of France, cruised past Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen 6-3, 6-3, as Canada’s Milos Raonic withdrew from the tournament with strep throat just moments before his match against Sam Querrey.
In the women’s draw, China’s Li set up a quarter-final against world No. 1 Williams with an error-strewn 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 win over teen Garbine Muguruza.
The 31-year-old Li is playing in her first tournament since suffering an ankle injury in January’s Australian Open final.
Williams also struggled, having to come from a set down to win 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 against Slovakian 13th seed Dominika Cibulkova.
Williams, who is bidding for a record sixth Miami title, said she had not been at her best and at 4-1 down to Cibulkova in the second set and staring defeat in the face, she had to pull herself together.
“I was struggling mentally, I was making so many errors,” said Williams, who regained the No. 1 spot in Doha last month, but has not played since.
“I could not pull myself together. Someone [a fan] kept telling me to relax and I listened to him,” she said.
Li — the 2011 French Open champion and two-time Australian Open finalist — made 39 unforced errors, including four double faults, and allowed her 19-year-old opponent to battle back to 5-5 in the first set, having led 5-1.
Even at 6-1 in the tiebreaker, Li faltered as Muguruza fought back to 6-6.
Li pulled herself together to take the next two points and the set, before wrapping up victory in the second set.
In the night match, third seed Maria Sharapova routed Czech Klara Zakopalova in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.
Sharapova, who is one of the favorites, has never won in Miami.
“It would be special to win this and add it to my collection,” she said.
Sharapova advances to the quarter-finals, where she will face eighth-seeded Sara Errani, who rallied to beat former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic 1-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Also, defending champ Agnieszka Radwanska defeated Sloane Stephens 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 to book a quarter-final clash with Belgian Kirsten Flipkens.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and China’s Peng Shuai lost to Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova and Flavia Pennetta of Italy 6-2, 6-2.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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