Japanese qualifier Yoshihito Nishioka booked his first ATP quarter-final on Thursday with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Marinko Matosevic at Delray Beach.
Nishioka, a 19-year-old left-hander, notched just his second ATP Tour win, converting five of his nine break-point opportunities in the 1 hour, 9 minute encounter.
“I’m so happy,” said Nishioka, the world No. 154. “At the beginning I was so nervous, but I think he was nervous, too. I just tried to make every ball. Every shot, I was focused on it.”
Nishioka is the first teenager to reach the Delray Beach quarter-finals since Bernard Tomic in 2012. He next faces Australia’s Tomic for a place in the semi-finals.
Tomic, now 22, held on Thursday to beat eighth seed Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-3, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4.
Tomic withstood 13 aces from Troicki, who is his doubles partner this week, sealing the win in just under two hours.
“Today was very cold, so it was tough for both of us,” said Tomic, who reached his fourth quarter-final of the season. “It was good tennis. We both served pretty good. I was happy to win because it’s a tough match playing Viktor.”
Donald Young of the US continued his strong start to the season, reaching his third quarter-final of the year with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Colombian Alejandro Gonzalez.
Young, the world No. 56, needed just 1 hour, 7 minutes to book a meeting with third seed Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine.
Dolgopolov beat Tim Smyczek of the US 6-2, 6-4 to reach his first quarter-final of the season.
“The wind was maybe more than the first day, so I needed to stay concentrated,” Dolgopolov said. “Sometimes I got nervous, but I think I handled it quite well.”
Young is riding a wave of confidence after reaching the semi-finals last week at the Memphis Open, where he lost to second seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa.
“I beat some quality players there, three in a row, which is something I haven’t done often in my career,” Young said.
“I got a lot of confidence from that and I came back in a couple situations, a couple [of] tight sets, so that was good,” he said.
OPEN 13
Top seed Milos Raonic of Canada was knocked out of the Open 13 in his first match on Thursday after a shock 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7/3) second-round loss to Simone Bolelli, who recorded the biggest win of his career.
Raonic, who had a first-round bye, hit 21 aces to Bolelli’s seven, but converted just one of eight break-point opportunities.
“There were many close games, but I couldn’t make the most of my chances,” Raonic said. “I served better as the match went on, but he made it through when it mattered the most.”
Bolelli broke the longest losing streak against top-10 opponents in the Open era, with his first victory after 35 defeats.
The Italian faces seventh seed Gael Monfils of France in the quarter-finals.
Third seed Ernests Gulbis of Latvia was eliminated in a 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.
Chardy has another difficult test, against compatriot Gilles Simon, after the fifth seed beat Borna Coric 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.
Second seed Stanislas Wawrinka is now the highest-ranked player in the tournament after the Swiss player eased past wild-card Benoit Paire of France 6-2, 6-3 in less than an hour.
Wawrinka, who has won more matches than any other player on the ATP Tour this year, moved to a 15-1 record as he booked a quarter-final against Sergiy Stakhovsky.
Another seeded player, No. 6 David Goffin of Belgium, retired with a rib injury when losing 5-1 to Austria’s Dominic Thiem.
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