Steve Johnson of the US on Monday beat fourth-seeded Richard Gasquet 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 on a rain-hit opening day of the Wimbledon warm-up Queen’s Club Championships in London.
In a match that was delayed and then interrupted several times by rain, Gasquet held a set point, but failed to serve out the opening set at 5-4.
After being overwhelmed in the tiebreaker, the 10th-ranked Frenchman surrendered an early break in the second set and failed to recover.
All the other main draw matches were postponed.
The tournament features four of the world’s top 10 players as they prepare for Wimbledon, which begins on June 27.
Andy Murray has been reunited with coach Ivan Lendl and heads the 32-player field as he bids for a record fifth Queen’s title.
Stan Wawrinka, who is being assisted by former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek, is seeded second, and Milos Raonic is seeded third as he works with seven-time major champion John McEnroe.
Krajicek was surprised to receive a call from Wawrinka’s principal coach, Magnus Norman, but jumped at the chance.
“I’d like to add [to Wawrinka’s game],” Krajicek said. “Sometimes it can be a bit of extra confidence. I think it can be a combination of things. It can be sometimes a little bit technically, also. So it’s different things you bring to the table.”
GERRY WEBER OPEN
AP, HALLE, Germany
Second-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan on Monday overcame a shaky start to beat Lucas Pouille of France 6-7 (5/7), 6-1, 6-4 in the first round of the Gerry Weber Open.
Nishikori fell behind 3-0 at the start of the match, but battled back to force a tiebreaker. He was unable to win the last two points on his serve and Pouille got the set.
Nishikori raced through the second, but requested medical treatment for what appeared to be a sore left shoulder. He broke serve in the seventh game and served out the match.
Pouille had 34 unforced errors, 12 more than Nishikori, a semi-finalist in Halle the past two years. Pouille has never won on grass in four attempts.
The match was played under the roof because of rain and the roof stayed closed for the rest of the day.
Last year’s runner-up, Andreas Seppi, beat sixth-seeded David Ferrer 6-3, 6-4.
Fifth-seeded David Goffin needed 2 hours, 47 minutes to overcome Borna Coric 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (3/7), 6-4.
Qualifier Sergiy Stakhovsky overcame Denis Kudla 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 and Benjamin Becker beat Ernests Gulbis 7-5, 6-3 in a match between two qualifiers.
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