Two-time Swiss Open champion Thomaz Bellucci ousted seventh-seeded Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the Geneva Open on Monday.
Bellucci, a left-hander from Brazil, carried over the form which saw him push Novak Djokovic to three sets at the Italian Open last week.
After wasting a 5-2 lead in the first set, 60th-ranked Bellucci held serve the rest of the way on his favored clay-court surface.
Mikhail Youzhny, who followed Bellucci as champion at Gstaad in 2013, beat Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/5), for just his sixth tour win this year.
Andrey Kuznetsov, beat fifth-seeded Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-2, 6-4, while sixth-seeded Joao Sousa of Portugal defeated his near-namesake Joao Souza of Brazil 7-5, 6-3.
Sousa next plays Austrian Jurgen Melzer, who beat Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia-Herzegovina 6-2, 6-3. Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain beat Marinko Matosevic of Australia 7-6 (7/2), 6-2.
The Geneva Open is debuting on the ATP tour after replacing an event in Duesseldorf, Germany.
Top-seeded Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland has a bye into the second round.
Second-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia, the US Open champion, was to play in the featured match yesterday against 17-year-old Russian Andrey Rublev, last year’s French Open junior singles winner.
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