Top-seeded Serena Williams advanced to the second round of the Swedish Open by beating Sesil Karatancheva of Kazakhstan 6-1, 6-2 on Tuesday.
Williams broke Karatancheva’s serve five times, twice in the first set and three times in the second set, to advance at the clay-court tournament on Sweden’s west coast.
She will next face Anna Tatishvili of Georgia, who beat 16-year-old Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Photo: EPA
Third-seeded Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic, sixth-seeded Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine, Mathilda Johansson of France, Teliana Pereira of Brazil, Richel Hogenkamp of the Netherlands and Andrea Gamiz of Venezuela also advanced to the second round.
GASTEIN LADIES
AP, BAD GASTEIN, AUSTRIA
Petra Martic of Croatia rallied to beat former champion Andrea Petkovic 6-7 (5/7), 7-5, 6-3 on Tuesday in the first round of the Gastein Ladies.
In a match that lasted more than three hours, the fourth-ranked German came back from a break down twice in the deciding set but was broken again at 3-4. Petkovic, who is now 0-4 against Martic, won the first of her two WTA titles in Bad Gastein in 2009.
Martic will face Patricia Mayr-Achleitner in the second round. The Austrian defeated Tereza Mrdeza of Croatia 6-4, 6-3.
Earlier, second-seeded Annika Beck overcame 12 double faults in a 7-5, 6-3 win over Shahar Peer of Israel. The German, who entered the top 50 for the first time this week after her fourth quarter-final of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, lost her serve four times, but saved eight more breakpoints.
Beck next plays Mandy Minella of Luxembourg, who defeated Dia Evtimova of Bulgaria 6-2, 2-6, 6-3.
Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland held serve throughout to defeat No. 5 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-2 and set up a second-round match against Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic, who beat Eleni Daniilidou of Greece 6-3, 6-1.
In her first career WTA match, Austrian wild-card Lisa-Marie Moser edged Romania’s Elena Bogdan 7-6 (8/6), 2-6, 6-4 and will next play top-seeded Mona Barthel.
Meanwhile, No. 6 Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa beat Anna Schmiedlova of Slovakia 6-1, 6-4; Estrella Cabeza Candela of Spain defeated Tadeja Majeric of Slovenia 6-1, 6-3; Elina Svitolina of Ukraine beat Michaela Honcova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-2; and Alexandra Cadantu saw off Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal 6-2, 6-4.
GERMAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
AP, HAMBURG, Germany
Third-seeded Nicolas Almagro of Spain advanced to the third round of the German Championships by defeating Tobias Kamke of Germany, 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday.
However, two other seeded players exited the tournament as Florian Mayer of Germany defeated Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine 6-3, 6-4 and Dmitry Tursunov of Russia upset Jeremy Chardy of France 6-4, 7-6 (7/1).
Ninth-seeded Benoit Paire of France also advanced to the third round by beating Albert Montanes of Spain 6-1, 6-4.
Gael Monfils beat 2010 Hamburg champion Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-3 to make the second round of the clay-court tournament. Golubev had to qualify for this year’s event.
Among other first-round winners were Federico Delbonis of Argentina, Robin Haase of the Netherlands, Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia, Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany and three Spaniards — Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Albert Ramos and Marcel Granollers.
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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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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