World No. 1 Rafael Nadal on Monday refused to blame his shock defeat in the Australian Open final in January to Stanislas Wawrinka as an excuse for his loss in Monaco last week.
The 27-year-old Spaniard, the top seed for this week’s Barcelona Open, lost in the quarter-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters to compatriot David Ferrer.
It was his earliest loss in the Principality since 2003 and came 12 months after his eight-year winning streak at the event was ended in the final by Novak Djokovic.
Photo: AFP
“I cannot continue using the Australia Open final as an excuse, that is past,” said Nadal, whose campaign in Barcelona begins in the second round against either Russian Nikolay Davydenko or Spaniard Albert Ramos today.
“In Monte Carlo, I should have achieved more. No one can win all the time, I’m no exception. I’ve lost before and I’ll lose again. But I’m not bitter or mad at myself,” he said.
Nadal, winner of 13 Grand Slam titles, said there was no disgrace in losing to veteran Ferrer, who is ranked sixth in the world.
Despite his defeat, he still remains favorite to go on and win a ninth French Open title in June.
“He’s one of the best players in the world,” Nadal said. “I didn’t play a good match, he deserved to win.”
Nadal was joined in the second round by three compatriots, who being unseeded, did not benefit from an automatic bye.
Daniel Gimeno-Traver beat Roberto Carballes Baena 6-3, 7-5, while Roberto Bautista Agut crushed Pole Lukasz Kubot 6-1, 6-0. Wild-card Inigo Cervantes beat Kazakh Aleksandr Nedovyesov 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili beat Michal Przysiezny of Poland 6-3, 6-4 and will face second-seed Ferrer, who failed to build on his win over Nadal in Monte Carlo and lost in the semi-finals to eventual champion Wawrinka.
Austrian hope Dominic Thiem beat 35-year-old Czech veteran Radek Stepanek 6-4, 6-4, while Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France advanced over German Andreas Beck 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
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