Dominic Thiem won the Rio Open on his favorite surface of clay on Sunday, a victory which he hoped would jump-start his season after a slow start.
Thiem claimed his eighth ATP Tour singles title and his sixth on clay with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain.
“Of course it’s not easy,” said Thiem, who was due to fly to Acapulo, where six of the ATP Tour’s top 10 are playing. “I did the same last year and it worked out pretty well. It’s not the greatest preparation, but I hope I can make it one more time. The confidence is pretty high now. I feel great the way I’m playing.”
Photo: AP
The Austrian is ranked No. 8 and was seeded second in Rio, but he became the favorite as soon as top seed Kei Nishikori was beaten in the first round.
He won all five matches in Rio without dropping a set.
Thiem’s victory came on the night of the first of two parades at the Sambadrome, with another set for yesterday. He said he saw just a tiny bit of the carnival atmosphere, getting a look at one of hundreds of Rio block parties during the week.
“It was right on the street,” Thiem said of the party near his hotel. “It was pretty impressive.”
“Enjoy the rest of the carnival,” Thiem said as he accepted his trophy from three-time French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten.
OPEN 13
AP, MARSEILLE, France
Second seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Sunday won a second title in as many weeks by defeating fellow Frenchman Lucas Pouille 6-4, 6-4 in the Open 13 final in Marseille, France.
World No. 11 Tsonga put on a nearly flawless performance on his serve to win his 14th career ATP Tour title at the indoor event.
Tsonga hit seven aces, dropped only three points on his first serve and did not face a single break point.
“This is the second week in a row that I’m heading home without a loss, it does not happen so often,” said the 31-year-old, who completed his win in just over an hour. “It’s good for my confidence.”
The former Australian Open runner-up broke once in each set and added a third Open 13 trophy to his collection after victories in 2009 and 2013.
Tsonga captured the Rotterdam title the previous weekend to end a two-year trophy drought.
DELRAY BEACH OPEN
AFP, MIAMI
Jack Sock on Sunday claimed his second ATP Tour title of the season when top seed Milos Raonic withdrew before the Delray Beach Open final with a torn hamstring.
Raonic told the Tennis Channel he was hurt in his semi-final win over Juan Martin del Potro.
“I didn’t think much of it,” Raonic said. “I thought it was just tightness from the match, but this morning I woke up unable to walk properly and did quite extensive treatment with my team. We came down to the conclusion that it was a slight tear of the hamstring in my right leg.”
Sock, who also won in Auckland last month, called it “very unfortunate.”
“We’ve had a lot of good battles and I was looking forward to the challenge,” said Sock, who claimed a third career ATP Tour title. “I’d be a little more excited and full of energy if I had gone out and won it on court, but on the flip side, a title is a title.”
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