Andre Agassi won his opening match on Monday at the US$2.5 million Tennis Masters Cincinnati when Mardy Fish quit during the third set because of a sore back.
Agassi, 34, isn't sure whether this will be his final year on the tour and is hoping to be back in form in time for the US Open. Agassi has recovered from a sore hip that bothered him this summer and forced him to skip Wimbledon.
PHOTO: AFP
His goal as the No. 11 seed in Cincinnati is to build confidence heading into the US Open.
"I need all these matches now to do that," Agassi said. "I've got to string a few together now. So it would be really nice to see my game elevate as the tournament progresses."
Agassi lost the first set 4-6, then pulled out a second-set tiebreaker 7-3 when Fish double-faulted. He led 4-1 in the third set when Fish retired because of a sore back, which also forced him to withdraw from last week's tournament in Toronto.
"It started bothering me late in the second set," Fish said. "I've been rehabbing it a good nine to 10 days, and it's gotten significantly better every day. My goal was to just not hurt it more. I contemplated not playing at all."
The tournament's top two seeds were off on Monday.
Roger Federer, who beat Andy Roddick at the Tennis Masters Canada on Sunday, put his 23-match winning streak on the line yesterday against Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia. Roddick, the No. 2 seed, played Max Mirnyi of Belarus last night.
French Open champion Gaston Gaudio of Argentina, fourth-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain, 10th-seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia and 14th-seeded Marat Safin of Russia all won first-round matches.
Sixteenth-seeded Andrei Pavel of Romania was the first seeded player eliminated, losing to Australian Wayne Arthurs 7-6 (5), 6-3. The first-round loss was Pavel's fourth in five appearances in the tournament.
Montreal Cup
Mary Pierce of France, a Montreal native, defeated Marlene Weingartner of Germany 6-1 6-1 in the opening round of the Montreal Cup WTA tournament on Monday.
Pierce, ranked 17th, remains a crowd favorite despite the fact she left the city as a child and does not have any memories of her time in Montreal.
"It's nice to come back to the city where I was born," Pierce said. "The people really gave me a very warm welcome here."
The higher seeded players had Monday off, but 13th seeded Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria defeated Russian Lina Krasnoroutskaya 7-6 3-6 6-4.
Number 12 seed Karolina Sprem of Croatia also advanced with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Maureen Blake of Canada.
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS