US qualifier Sam Querrey reached the second round of the BNP Paribas Masters by beating 2012 runner-up Jerzy Janowicz 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 on Monday in Paris.
Querrey had 17 aces to 12 for Janowicz, who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals last year, and 46 winners to 32.
Poland’s Janowicz won four straight points to lead 6-3 in the tiebreaker and capitalized on a double-fault from Querrey to take the first set.
Photo: EPA
However, Querrey then broke Janowicz twice in the second set and slammed an ace to even the match. The American broke for a 2-1 lead in the final set and converted his second match point with a forehand winner.
Fernando Verdasco of Spain and Colombian Santiago Giraldo also won their first-round matches, along with US qualifier Jack Sock, Austrian veteran Jurgen Melzer and Frenchmen Julien Benneteau and Adrian Mannarino.
Verdasco overcame US qualifier Donald Young 4-6, 6-1, 6-3; Giraldo defeated Mikhail Youzhny of Russia 6-2, 6-4; Sock routed Pablo Andujar of Spain 6-1, 6-1; Melzer dismissed Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 6-1; Benneteau ousted Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun 6-3, 6-4; and Mannarino beat Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Photo: EPA
Richard Gasquet of France, Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany and Austrian Dominic Thiem also advanced on Monday.
Gasquet, a semi-finalist at last year’s US Open, was leading 6-7 (4), 6-2, 4-0 when Uzbek qualifier Denis Istomin retired because a leg injury.
Thiem, the youngest player in the top 50, beat Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine 6-2, 4-6, 6-0, while Kohlschreiber cruised past French wildcard Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-3, 6-1 to next play defending champion Novak Djokovic.
Photo: AFP
Amid the joy of becoming a father, Serbia’s Djokovic has had to turn his attention back to tennis rather quickly as he tries to fend off Roger Federer’s assault for the year-end No. 1 ranking.
This will be Djokovic’s first tournament since the birth of his first child last week. He has left the boy, Stefan, at home with his wife, Jelena, but on Monday said he hopes to incorporate his family life into his tennis travels next year.
“I would like to be with him every single day and with my wife, but sometimes that’s not possible, like this week for example because the baby is too young to travel yet,” Djokovic said.
The Serb leads Federer by 2,230 points in the world rankings, but has 2,500 points to defend as he won Paris and the ATP World Tour Finals last year, while his Swiss rival can gain points after having lost in the semi-finals of both events.
“Honestly, the way I feel right now, I feel like I’m already No. 1 with becoming a father last week. For me, this is the most important moment in my life,” said Djokovic, before adding: “Of course it is, for both of us, the goal [is] to finish the year as No. 1 of the world.”
Federer won the Swiss Indoors title in his hometown tournament on Sunday and the 17-time Grand Slam champion could finish the season as the top player for the sixth time to tie Pete Sampras’ record.
“This year he came out strong again,” Djokovic said of Federer, who was beset by a sore back last year and had one the worst seasons of his career, winning only one title.
Djokovic and Federer are tied for most titles this season with five each and could meet in the final in Paris. Federer leads 3-2 against Djokovic this year and has a 19-17 career record against the Serb.
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