Top-seeded Marion Bartoli crashed out of her opening match of the DFS Classic on Wednesday and is a major doubt for this year's Wimbledon because of a wrist injury.
Bartoli, who was the runner-up at Wimbledon last year, lost the second-round match 5-7, 6-4, 6-0 to world no. 52 Petra Cetkovska, and said her wrist has been hampering her play.
“It’s been bothering me since before the French Open,” Bartoli said. “I’ve been having treatment but it’s tendinitis, and there is only so much you can do for that. It seems like 2008 doesn’t want me to be in great shape. I am always having something, some illness or injury.”
PHOTO: AP
Bartoli, who lost in the first round of the French Open two weeks ago, said she was likely to miss Wimbledon “if it’s not getting better.”
“Missing a Grand Slam, especially Wimbledon is a huge disappointment,” she said.
Bartoli came from a break down to win the first set 7-5 and was close to victory at 4-4 in the second. But she appeared to give up after going down 5-4, dropping the last eight games quickly.
The 10th-ranked player sent ground stroke after ground stroke long or wide, and also served four double faults in her last two service games.
Asked why she did not retire, Bartoli said: “I always try to be fair with everyone and by retiring it becomes like ‘why can’t you find a solution?’ For the crowd it is better to go on in the match and for my opponent she doesn’t feel she has beaten me if I pull out.”
Other seeds to lose were No. 11 Casey Dellacqua, No. 6 Sania Mirza and No. 7 Olga Govortsova.
■ WARSAW OPEN
AP, WARSAW
Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko rallied to beat Jiri Vanek 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 on Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals of the Warsaw Open.
Davydenko, who won the tournament in 2006, broke Vanek’s serve five times and will next face fellow Russian Evgeny Korolev, who advanced when the sixth-seeded Potito Starace retired with a headache while trailing 7-5, 4-0.
Third-seeded Juan Monaco of Argentina also advanced by beating France’s Florent Serra 7-5, 6-3, and No. 7 Marcel Granollers of Spain defeated Marcos Daniel of Brazil 6-2, 6-4.
■ QUEEN'S CLUB
AFP, LONDON
Rafael Nadal won his first singles match since destroying Roger Federer in the French Open final as the Spaniard advanced to the third round at Queen’s Club on Wednesday.
Nadal was back in action just three days after his astonishing three-set rout of world No. 1 Federer in Paris, but there was no hangover here as Jonas Bjorkman was put to the sword 6-2, 6-2.
This was the perfect way for Nadal to mark the start of his campaign to unseat Federer as the Wimbledon champion. His dominance over the Swiss on clay is unquestioned, but successive final defeats to Federer at the All-England Club are a constant regret for such fierce competitor.
Bjorkman is a seasoned grass court campaigner but he was no match for Nadal’s potent mix of power and poise from the baseline.
Nadal was quick to impose his will on Bjorkman by breaking the veteran Swede in a long third game. There was no way back for Bjorkman after that.
The world No. 2 eased through for the loss of just four games and is already looking in ominious form. Kei Nishikori, his next opponent, has been warned.
Japanese teenager Nishikori continued his dream debut at Queen’s with a 7-6 (10/8), 6-3 win over unseeded Frenchman Olivier Patience.
Lleyton Hewitt kept up his challenge for a record fifth Queen’s title as the Australian moved into the third round with a 6-3, 6-2 win against Xavier Malisse.
Hewitt admits the lure of success during the brief grass-court season has convinced him to play through the pain of a hip injury that has troubled him for several weeks.
So the 2002 Wimbledon champion will be pleased with the ease that he brushed aside Malisse to set up a clash with French seventh seed Paul-Henri Mathieu.
Andy Roddick, the other man chasing five Queen’s titles, recovered from a slow start to get his bid up and running with a 6-7 (6/8), 6-1, 6-1 victory over Robby Ginepri.
Roddick, the reigning Queen’s champion, was back in action for the first time since suffering a shoulder injury in Rome five weeks ago and he showed a few signs of rust early on in the second round tie.
■ GERRY WEBER OPEN
AP, HALLE, GERMANY
Roger Federer shook off his lopsided French Open final loss, running his winning streak on grass to 55 matches with a 6-4, 6-2 victory on Wednesday over Michael Berrer at the Gerry Weber Open.
The top-ranked Federer dropped just one point on his serve in the first set against the 89th-ranked German player in his first match since Sunday’s heavy defeat to Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros.
Federer, a four-time winner at Halle, overwhelmed his opponent with precise shots and closed with an ace in a 61-minute Wimbledon warmup.
“My reaction was good, my movement was good, I’m very happy with my first-round performance,” Federer said.
“This wasn’t necessarily expected, the preparation on grass was very short,” he said.
Federer spent just an hour-and-a-half warming up on grass before the win, coming three days after taking only four games in his most one-sided defeat in years.
The two players seeded behind him had mixed luck on Wednesday.
James Blake rallied for a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 win over Benjamin Becker, but defending champion Tomas Berdych went down 6-2, 7-5 to Robin Soderling.
Yu Yao-hsing on Tuesday nabbed Taiwan’s only goal in the final round of qualifiers for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, as they fell 3-1 to Sri Lanka at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Early goals from Sri Lanka in the first half left Taiwan struggling to get on the board, and Christopher Tiao’s own goal at 53 minutes sealed the team’s fate in the third round of qualifiers. While acknowledging that the defeat, Taiwan’s sixth in Group D, was disappointing, head coach Matt Ross said he saw reasons to stay positive about the team’s development. “There were lots of positive signs in terms of the
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
INDIGESTION: Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup for a third consecutive time after a 4-1 defeat to Bosnia on penalties in a loss Gattuso said was ‘difficult to digest’ Coach Graham Arnold on Tuesday challenged his players to “shock the world” after Iraq became the 48th and final team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup with a nerve-shredding 2-1 win over Bolivia in an intercontinental playoff in Mexico, as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also secured their places at the finals. Iraq, whose preparations were disrupted by the war in the Middle East, sealed their first appearance at the finals in 40 years and are to play in Group I against France, Senegal and Norway. Goals from Ali al-Hamadi
Teng Kai-wei, the only Taiwanese player on an opening-day roster in this year’s Major League Baseball (MLB) season, took his first win of the year with the Houston Astros in his season debut. Teng entered in relief in the top of the fifth inning against the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday, with the Astros trailing 5-0. He pitched 2-1/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts, as Houston scored 11 runs during his outing to snatch an 11-9 comeback victory. The win is the Astros’ first of the season and the third of Teng’s MLB career. “It’s my first time pitching for the Astros, so
RSS