Andy Murray on Friday continued his golden run with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Australia’s Bernard Tomic to move into the semi-finals of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The world No. 2 pushed through the fatigue of an arduous schedule and overcame a 4-3 deficit in the second set, where he won the final three games to continue his spectacular run that has included his second Wimbledon crown and defense of his Olympics singles title.
“I think the conditions here help a little,” Murray said. “It’s pretty quick and there are not a lot of long rallies. That helped me tonight. I played the big points well and that was the difference. That comes from winning big matches and making better decisions.”
Murray was last defeated by Novak Djokovic in the French Open final in June and is now to meet Milos Raonic in the semi-finals after the big-serving Canadian beat Austrian eighth seed Dominic Thiem.
Raonic lost to Murray in the Wimbledon final.
“He’s got one of the biggest serves in the game,” Murray said. “I’ll need to [return] well if I want to win.”
Raonic unleashed 17 aces and did not face a break point during the 68-minute match that put him within two wins of his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title.
“I’ve practiced with him many times, so to some extent I have an understanding of his game, like he has of mine, but it’s different come match time, so I did a little bit of studying. I feel like I took that all in and adapted well,” Raonic told the ATP Tour Web site.
Raonic skipped the Olympics and instead spent time with coach John McEnroe, with the two discussing the disappointment of losing to Murray in his first career Grand Slam final appearance.
In other quarter-final action, Croatian 12th seed Marin Cilic advanced when compatriot Borna Coric retired with a knee injury after dropping the first set 6-2, while unseeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov beat the US’ Steve Johnson 7-6 (10/8), 6-2.
Meanwhile, in the women’s singles, Angelique Kerber on Friday moved within two victories of the world No. 1 ranking when she beat Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro in their quarter-final.
The German second seed overcame a slow start before finding some form and outlasting ninth seed Navarro 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 in a match that never reached any great heights in front of a small crowd in steamy afternoon heat.
Kerber’s task was perhaps made easier by an apparently injured Navarro, who moments after losing, withdrew from her doubles match, citing a thigh complaint.
If Kerber wins today, she will displace Serena Williams as world No. 1, ending Williams’ run of 183 consecutive weeks at the top.
Williams was a late withdrawal from Cincinnati, citing a shoulder injury.
To overtake Williams, Kerber must first get past Romania’s Simona Halep, who defeated Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska 7-5, 6-1 to reach the semi-final.
Kerber and Halep last met in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon, where the German prevailed in two tight sets, but Halep has not lost a match since en route to victories at the BRD Bucharest Open and the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
Kerber has played a heavy schedule over the summer, and it showed in her sluggish start on Friday.
“It was really difficult to go out there,” she told the WTA Web site. “I’m playing like I don’t know which day ... every day, it’s the same. When I’m waking up it’s the same routine I have... Of course, it’s really hot out there.”
The other semi-final is to pit fourth seed Garbine Muguruza against 15th seed Karolina Pliskova.
Spain’s Muguruza, the French Open champion, beat Hungarian qualifier Timea Babos 6-4, 6-3, while the Czech Republic’s Pliskova upset Russian seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
Pliskova credited her victory to improved serving as the match progressed.
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