A dominant Stan Wawrinka on Friday outclassed Serbian Viktor Troicki 6-1, 7-6 (7/3) to book his place in the semi-finals of the ATP Sofia Open and suggested that his recovery from a knee injury is well under way.
The 32-year-old Swiss, who had surgery in August last year and only returned to the court last month, offered fans at the Armeets Arena plenty of “oooh-aahh” moments with his trademark backhand winners.
“It was a great match, I played better than I expected,” said Wawrinka, who aims to clinch his first title since winning the Geneva Open in May last year. “I’m improving every day, I’m moving better and I’m serving better. I think my level is getting better.”
“I’m doing everything to keep winning, that’s for sure,” he said after just his third win of this year. “I’m enjoying my time, I’m fighting on the court and that’s the most important.”
Wawrinka’s semi-final opponent is to be Bosnian qualifier Mirza Basic, who produced a solid display to beat Maximilian Marterer 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, claiming his second German scalp after eliminating fourth seed Philipp Kohlschreiber on Wednesday.
World No. 93 Marius Copil fired down 13 aces to reach his first ATP semi-final with an impressive 6-4, 6-4 victory over third seed Gilles Muller — his third consecutive straight-sets win.
The 1.93m-tall Romanian lost only three points on his serve before breaking for a 5-4 lead and wrapping up the opening set, winning the next game to love.
The second set was a tighter affair, but Luxembourg’s Muller, one of the last of dying breed of players prepared to serve and volley, could not find a solution to Copil’s aggression and accuracy.
Copil is to face Slovakian qualifier Jozef Kovalik, who continued his fairy-tale week with a 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 win over Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, his fifth successive victory on Bulgarian soil.
World No. 187 Kovalik needed all his firepower and mental strength to fend off the resilient Cypriot in a highly charged clash that lasted 1 hour, 55 minutes and reach his first ATP semi-final.
“This is the biggest win of my career,” a delighted Kovalik said in a courtside interview.
Additional reporting by AFP
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