Taiwan’s Jimmy Wang crashed out of the first round of the Hall of Fame Championships in Newport, Rhode Island, on Tuesday after a 6-2, 6-4 defeat to eighth seed Adrian Mannarino of France.
Wang saved three of the six break-point chances world No. 92 Mannarino created, but failed to convert either of his two as the Taiwanese world No. 138 exited the tournament.
Meanwhile, John Isner rode his fierce serve to another victory on Newport’s grass courts, defeating fellow American Wayne Odesnik 6-3, 7-6 (8/6) to reach the second round.
Isner had 19 aces — with one serve topping 221kph — and only two double faults in raising his career record at Newport to 14-3.
“I’m glad that I’m here and hopefully I can keep it going,” Isner said. “I’ve had good memories here in the past.”
Isner’s serves were so overpowering that a handful of them bounced into the seats. At one point in the opening set, Odesnik looked at a fan seated in the first row and said: “I need to borrow your seat to return his serve.”
However, for all his strong play on the court, Isner seemed more excited about what awaited in a few hours — he was to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
“Let’s talk about Fenway,” he said, opening his press conference. “It’s going to be awesome. I have never been to Fenway. My initial thought was I wanted to go to the game and get off the court. Then I hear the good news. I love baseball. I’m going to enjoy that moment. Hope I throw a strike.”
Also on Tuesday, defending champion Nicolas Mahut of France, the No. 4 seed, defeated Facundo Arguello of Argentina 7-6 (7/1), 6-4.
“I feel like almost home,” Mahut said. “I have my habits. I go to the same restaurant. Every year I’m waiting for this tournament.”
In the match of the day, third seed Lleyton Hewitt of Australia advanced to the second round by rallying past Ryan Harrison of the US 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, while seventh seed Jack Sock beat fellow American Alex Kuznetsov 6-4, 6-3.
In other first-round matches, qualifier Austin Krajicek stopped fellow American Tim Smyczek 7-6 (9/7), 6-1; Luke Saville of Australia ousted Peter Polansky of Canada 6-4, 6-2; Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine defeated Farrukh Dustov of Uzbekistan 6-3, 6-2; and qualifier Ante Pavic of Croatia downed Marius Copil of Romania 7-6 (7/0), 6-4.
Additional reporting by staff writer
SWEDISH OPEN
AP, BASTAD, Sweden
Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay won for just the fourth time this year when he ousted sixth seed Jeremy Chardy of France 6-2, 6-2 in under an hour in the first round of the Swedish Open on Tuesday.
Chardy was coming off a fourth-round appearance at Wimbledon.
Another player to end a drought was eighth seed Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain, who won for the first time since April at the expense of Dustin Brown of Germany, 6-3, 6-4.
Carlos Berlocq of Argentina began his title defense with a 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Julian Reister of Germany, while Victor Hanescu of Romania advanced in straight sets to line up a match against top seed and two-time former champion David Ferrer, who had a first-round bye.
Two qualifiers, Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain and Radu Albot of Moldova, also won, while two local wild cards, Elias Ymer and Christian Lindell, earned their first wins on the ATP Tour.
MERCEDES CUP
AP, STUTTGART, Germany
Heavy rain washed out play on the second day of the Mercedes Cup on Tuesday.
Tournament director Edwin Weindorfer said it would not cause a problem as the organizers would just use more courts yesterday.
Fabio Fognini of Italy is the defending champion.
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
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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