Spain’s sixth seed Feliciano Lopez and Igor Sijsling of the Netherlands booked the first of the quarter-final spots at the Thailand Open yesterday.
Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan also progressed, moving into the second round after defeating Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy, 6-3, 6-2.
While Lopez went through without problems over Japan’s Go Soeda, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3, there was plenty of hard work for Sijsling, who beat compatriot Robin Haase for the second time this season as he posted a 6-7 (7/9), 6-4, 7-6 (7/2) second-round win which took two-and-a-quarter hours.
Photo: AFP
Sijsling, ranked 75th to the 60th of Dutch No. 1 Haase, said: “It went well, but it was a very tough match and we both played well. He got a bit defensive and tried to make the points longer, physically it was tough.”
“I tried to play attacking tennis and it worked for me. I got to the net more and I think that helped in the end,” the Bangkok debutant added.
In concluding first-round play at the hard courts of the Impact Arena, Russian fifth seed Mikhail Youzhny struck six aces and saved all three break points in a 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Italian Paolo Lorenzi.
Making his tournament debut, Youzhny is next to play Uzbek Denis Istomin, 6-3, 6-0 winner over South Korea’s Jeong Suk-young.
Youzhny, 31, is one of 14 over-30 winners on the ATP this season. He stands 33-20 for this year.
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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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