Sixth-seeded Adrian Mannarino of France on Tuesday rallied past James Duckworth of Australia 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/4) to advance to the second round of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.
The 28-year-old Mannarino was the only seeded player in action and voiced his displeasure over playing on a side court and the condition of Newport’s grass surface.
“I feel relieved that I won the match, but still I didn’t enjoy any minute on the court,” he said. “The court is just ridiculously bad. We’re playing [next to] the other court. You’ve got the camera, the microphone on the court. You can’t really move. This is really not respectful for the players to come, that kind of court.”
Qualifier Frank Dancevic of Canada beat American Ryan Harrison 6-4, 6-4 on center court in a match that ended a few minutes after Mannarino’s victory.
Also on Tuesday, wild card Stefan Kozlov beat Benjamin Becker, 6-1, 6-2; qualifier Brian Baker outlasted fellow American Austin Krajicek, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2; and John-Patrick Smith ousted Jordan Thompson, 6-4, 6-4. Marco Chiudinelli edged Alex Kuznetsov, 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), Sam Groth beat Michal Przysienzny, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4; and Yuichi Sugita defeated Amir Weintraub, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
SWEDISH OPEN
AP, BASTAD, Sweden
Former finalist Fernando Verdasco on Tuesday saved all five break points he faced in beating Swiss qualifier Henri Laaksonen 6-3, 6-2 in the first round of the Swedish Open.
Verdasco, who won his seventh ATP title in Bucharest in April, has reached the quarter-finals or better five times in Bastad, including the 2013 final. He next faces Spanish compatriot Albert Montanes, a winner of six clay-court titles, and who handed Elias Ymer of Sweden his 10th consecutive main draw loss, 6-4, 6-2.
Other winners included Taro Daniel of Japan, who downed seventh-seeded Horacio Zeballos of Argentina 6-4, 6-2, Gastao Elias of Portugal, Dustin Brown of Germany, and Roberto Carballes of Spain.
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