World No. 1 Rafael Nadal dismissed lingering doubts over his recent form with a resounding 6-1, 6-0 win over Juan Monaco to reach the third round of the Madrid Masters on Wednesday.
Monaco failed to win a game on serve all match as Nadal, who suffered shock defeats in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, rolled off 10 straight games to seal victory in little over an hour.
He now meets Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen.
Nadal is the only top-four seed remaining in the men’s draw, as Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer withdrew due to injury and family reasons respectively, while Stanislas Wawrinka lost to Austrian qualifier Dominic Thiem on Tuesday.
However, the Spaniard insists he has not been distracted by the draw appearing to open up perfectly for a fourth title in Madrid.
Wimbledon champion Andy Murray was victorious on his return to action for the first time in over a month as he progressed with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 win over Spain’s Nicolas Almagro.
The Scot cruised through the opening set, but went onto lose six games in a row after breaking the Almagro serve in the first game of the second.
Serve was dominant in the third, until a backhand error from Almagro gifted Murray the vital break on match point.
Murray will next face in-form Colombian Santiago Giraldo, after he upset French 11th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 6-3.
Serena Williams also cruised into the last 16 of the WTA Madrid Open with a 6-2, 6-3 thrashing of China’s Peng Shuai.
The 17-time Grand Slam champion powered through the first set against the world No. 42 for the loss of just one point on her own serve.
Peng showed more resistance in the second, but could not convert on two break points and Williams needed just one chance to seal the only break of the set, before serving out the match to set up a third round meeting with Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.
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