Former champion Marcel Granollers on Monday used the drop-shot to good effect as he surprised American fifth seed Taylor Fritz in three sets at the US Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston, Texas.
The 32-year-old Spaniard claimed a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Fritz, the only seeded player in first-round action at the River Oaks Country Club.
“Taylor is a player who can hit very hard. He hits very hard from the baseline and I needed to change rhythm,” said Granollers, who won the tournament in 2008. “If I hit good drop-shots, I think it’s a good option against him and I think today it worked.”
Earlier, Norway’s Casper Ruud made his River Oaks debut by defeating Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien 7-6 (9/7), 6-4.
His father, Christian, won the tournament in 1996 when it was not an ATP Tour event.
Former champion Ivo Karlovic, who won in 2007, fell to American Ryan Harrison 6-3, 6-4.
Australian Bernard Tomic and Chile’s Christian Garin also advanced.
Tomic, firing 11 aces, outlasted American Denis Kudla 7-6 (10/8), 7-5, while Garin came from a set down to top Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later