Martin Alund of Argentina wore down Lleyton Hewitt of Australia 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 on Wednesday in the US Men’s Clay Court Championships, before rain washed out the rest of the day’s schedule.
Play was suspended at 2:47pm at River Oaks Country Club after continuing rain left the clay courts too wet to continue. Top-seeded Nicolas Almagro of Spain and No. 2 Tommy Haas of Germany had their matches rescheduled for yesterday.
Hewitt, the former top-ranked player, broke Alund in the seventh game of the first set and closed out the set with an overhead winner.
Alund and Hewitt traded breaks in the second and third games of the second set, before Alund took control. Hewitt was broken again in the sixth game and Alund escaped two break points before capturing the second set in the ninth game. Hewitt escaped three match points in the final game, but then double-faulted to end the match.
Hewitt made the tiring trip from Uzbekistan after helping Australia to a 3-1 victory in Davis Cup play.
GRAND PRIX HASSAN II
AP, CASABLANCA, Morocco
Top-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka rallied to beat 85th-ranked Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 in the second round of the Grand Prix Hassan II on Wednesday.
The 17th-ranked Wawrinka, who won the clay-court event in 2010, served seven aces to Kavcic’s none.
It is Wawrinka’s third clay-court tournament this year, having reached the final before losing to David Ferrer in Buenos Aires, then opening with a loss to Fabio Fognini in Acapulco, Mexico, in February.
In first-round action, seventh-seeded Robin Haase of the Netherlands and Kenny de Schepper of France advanced and will next play each other.
Haase beat Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, while De Schepper eliminated Steve Darcis of Belgium 6-3, 6-4.
Also reaching the quarter-finals were fourth-seeded Benoit Paire, former top-five player Tommy Robredo and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain.
Paire rallied past Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3; Robredo beat Tobias Kamke of Germany 6-4, 7-5; and Garcia-Lopez defeated Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/3), 6-2.
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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
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