Two-time defending champ John Isner defeated fellow American Ryan Harrison 7-6 (7/0), 6-2 on Monday in the opening round of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.
The 2.05m Isner rode his big serve to win his 11th straight match on Newport’s grass courts.
The 28-year old Isner showed no effects from a left knee injury that forced him to retire from his second-round match at Wimbledon. He blanked Harrison in the first-set tie breaker and then broke him twice in the second set, before Harrison hit a backhand return long on match point.
On his way to the title last year, Isner held serve in 57 of the 58 games he played.
It was a similar formula that he used on Monday.
Top seed Sam Querrey was slated to face fellow American Tim Smyczek is his first-round match yesterday.
Also on Monday, Poland’s Michal Przysiezny beat 15-year-old American Stefan Kozlov, who was making his ATP debut, 6-3, 6-7 (9/11), 6-4 in a match that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours.
Kozlov broke to go up 4-3 in the third set, before calling for the trainer, who worked on his right hip.
The match ended with the youngster limping before falling to the ground as he made his way to the net. He sat in his chair for a while with a towel over his head before slowly walking off the court.
The tournament is held in conjunction with induction ceremonies into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Martina Hingis leads this year’s class that will be enshrined on Saturday before the semi-finals.
In other first-round matches, France’s Adrian Mannarino, who advanced at Wimbledon when Isner retired and reached the fourth round, beat American veteran James Blake 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 and Japan’s Yuichi Sugita got by Canadian Jesse Levine 7-5, 7-5.
SWEDISH OPEN
AP, BASTAD, Sweden
Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov rallied after dropping the first set to Elias Ymer, a Swedish wild card ranked 1,032, to secure a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 victory in the opening round of the SkiStar Swedish Open.
The fifth-seeded Dimitrov was broken twice in the opening set before finding his service form and taking control of the nearly two-hour match.
The 17-year-old Ymer was playing in his first ATP Tour-level match.
In other matches, Argentine Carlos Berlocq upset seventh-seeded countryman Horacio Zeballos 6-4, 6-3 and Argentine Martin Alund overcame another Swedish wild card, Markus Eriksson, 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (10/8) in a three-hour, 25-minute battle.
Top seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic has a bye in the first round.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB