Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun, the No. 5 seed, began warming up on Tuesday for the hard courts of the US Open with a 6-3, 7-5 win over qualifier Kevin King in the first round of a rain-soaked Atlanta Open.
Lleyton Hewitt also had a 6-4, 6-4 win over Eduoard Roger-Vasselin. Seventh seed Hewitt, who was runner-up two weeks ago on grass in Newport, Rhode Island, was one of three seeded players to finish his match before a pair of evening rain delays. Play was eventually suspended until yesterday.
Eighth seed Evgeny Donskoy beat Rajeev Ram 6-3, 6-4, while sixth seed Mardy Fish was leading Michael Russell 6-4, 2-4 (15-0 on serve) when their match was delayed for a second time.
Photo: AFP
It was just Fish’s third tournament since he withdrew from the US Open in September last year because of an irregular heartbeat.
The top four seeds, Jon Isner, Kevin Anderson, Ivan Dodig and Igor Sijsling, had first-round byes.
Hewitt, the former world No. 1 who won the US Open in 2001 and Wimbledon in 2002, is looking forward to the final Grand Slam event of the year, even though it is more than a month away. He is currently ranked No. 64 in the world.
“I hadn’t hit a lot on hard court. I’ve always found that coming from grass to hard court is difficult,” Hewitt said after winning in 88 minutes. “I feel like I’ve played very well for the most part ... I’m preparing for the US Open. When you’ve been No. 1 and won Slams, the big ones are what motivate you.”
SWISS CUP
AP, GSTAAD, Switzerland
Thomaz Bellucci’s defense of his Swiss Open title ended in the first round on Tuesday when he lost to Federico Delbonis, who beat Roger Federer in Germany last week.
Argentine Delbonis won 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) against Brazilian Bellucci, who also took the clay-court title at Swiss ski resort Gstaad in 2009.
Delbonis continues to rise in the world rankings after his victory over Federer in the Hamburg semi-finals helped him climb from No. 114 to No. 65.
Federer is the top seed in Gstaad and has a second-round match scheduled today against Daniel Brands of Germany, who took a set off him in the second round in Hamburg. Brands advanced from the first round on Tuesday by beating Marco Chiudinelli, Federer’s Swiss childhood friend, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.
Four Spaniards had first-round wins. Eighth seed Roberto Bautista eased past Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland 6-2, 6-3; Daniel Gimeno-Traver beat Kenny de Schepper of France 6-4, 6-4; Guillermo Garcia-Lopez defeated Adrian Ungur of Romania 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 6-1; and Pablo Andujar eliminated Victor Crivoi of Romania 6-1, 6-2.
Victor Hanescu got a win for Romania, beating German qualifier Dustin Brown 7-6 (8/6), 6-2.
Robin Haase of the Netherlands beat Joao Souza of Brazil 6-4, 7-6 (9/7) and next faces third seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia.
CROATIA OPEN
AP, UMAG, Croatia
Fifth seed Tommy Robredo of Spain cruised into the second round of the Croatia Open on Tuesday, beating Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2.
Robredo mostly kept to the baseline and he needed only 71 minutes to outplay Hajek.
The Czech, ranked No. 133, was nowhere close to the level he showed last week in Hamburg, where he lost to Roger Federer in the third round.
Robredo first broke for a 4-2 lead, but then lost serve, before breaking again. In the second set, Hajek was 2-1 up, but then lost five games in a row.
Sixth seed Martin Klizan of Slovenia also made it easily into the second round, beating Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi 6-2, 6-1.
Another Slovenian, qualifier Blaz Kavcic, rallied to upset seventh seed Florian Mayer of Germany 6-7 (5/7), 6-0, 7-5. Kavcic won a decisive break at 6-5 in the third set for a match point.
“This was a really tough match,” Kavcic said.
Kavcic next faces Gael Monfils of France, who defeated Croatian wild-card Mate Pavic 7-5, 6-2. Monfils struggled at times in the first set, allowing Pavic a set point a 5-4.
Spain’s Albert Montanes faced a tougher challenge in the opening set before defeating Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic 7-6 (7/3), 6-1. Lajovic paid the price for wasting a set point in the first set.
Eighth seed Carlos Berlocq of Argentina defeated Croatia’s Josko Topic 6-0, 6-1, while Serbia’s Viktor Troicki beat Antonio Veic of Croatia 7-6 (8/6), 6-1.
In the late match, eighth seed Horacio Zeballos of Argentina defeated Croatia’s Borna Coric 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-0.
Earlier, Austria’s Andreas Haider-Maurer defeated Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4 and Slovenia’s Aljaz Bedene eliminated Dutchman Boy Westerhof 6-2, 6-2.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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