Jo-Wilfried Tsonga remained undefeated at the Austrian Open as the top seed clinched a 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 defeat of German Daniel Brands to reach the quarter-finals on Thursday.
“So far, I’m undefeated here,” said Tsonga, who won the title in his only previous appearance in 2011.
The Frenchman suffered a minor lapse in the second set as Brands — a winner over Roger Federer on clay at Gstaad in July — fought back to level the match at a set each.
Photo: AFP
Yet Tsonga, in contention for one of the remaining spots in the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals next month in London, quickly regained his superiority to complete the victory in 93 minutes with seven aces and two breaks of serve.
“It was a tough match to start with,” said Tsonga, who suffered a knee injury in the summer and is competing in his fourth event over the past five weeks as he aims to qualify for the season wrap-up.
Former champion Tommy Haas saw off qualifier Miloslav Mecir Jr 7-5, 7-6 (10/8) to reach the quarter-finals.
The 25-year-old Slovak qualifier is the son of former world No. 4 Miloslav Mecir, the 1988 Olympic champion who also reached the 1986 US Open and 1989 Australian Open finals.
Second seed Haas, 35, is playing the Vienna event for the 11th time, having won the title in 2001 and now stands at 12-9 at the Stadthalle.
Yet the win, in just under two hours, was far from simple for Haas, who withdrew last week in Shanghai before his third-round match with back pain.
The German had to save a set point in the opener, before finally winning 7-5 in 45 minutes.
The 240th-ranked Mecir, whose opening-round win was his first at the ATP level, had two set points before Haas finished off the job on his third match point.
Mecir is the second son of a former top 10 player to win an ATP match this year. In July, it happened to Emilio Gomez, whose father is 1990 Roland Garros champion Andres Gomez, at a tournament in Quito.
Haas was happy to reach the next round.
“I was very impressed,” the German said of Mecir. “I had heard his name before and seen it in draws. I actually played Karol Kucera when his father was coaching him. Mecir has a similar game to his dad, he played well.”
Italian third seed Fabio Fognini began with a victory over Pole Lukas Kubot 7-5, 6-2, while Robin Haase defeated seventh seed Vasek Pospisil 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (5/7), 6-2.
STOCKHOLM OPEN
AP, STOCKHOLM
Favorites David Ferrer and Milos Raonic were made to sweat by first-time opponents to reach the Stockholm Open quarter-finals on Thursday.
Top-seeded Ferrer made the last eight in Stockholm at his third attempt when he overcame Jack Sock of the US 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, while second-seeded Raonic was hard-pressed to finish off Joachim Johansson of Sweden, who came out of retirement at 31 and qualified for his first pro main draw in two years. Raonic won 6-2, 7-6 (7/3).
No. 5 Ernests Gulbis of Latvia and No. 7 Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria also won, but No. 4 Kevin Anderson of South Africa and three-time finalist Jarkko Nieminen of Finland lost their second-round matches.
Luxembourg Open
AP, LUXEMBOURG
Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki beat two-time finalist Monica Niculescu of Romania 6-3, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Luxembourg Open on Thursday.
Wozniacki joined second-seeded Sloane Stephens of the US, who advanced by beating Yvonne Meusburger of Austria 7-5, 6-4. Sabine Lisicki made it a perfect day for the top three seeds when the German defeated Tereza Smitkova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-0.
Stephens, ranked 12th in the world, has yet to lose a set in Luxembourg and was due to play Stefanie Voegele yesterday. The 54th-ranked Swiss player struggled to beat Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
In another second-round match, Karin Knapp of Italy beat Andrea Petkovic of Germany 7-5, 7-5.
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
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
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