Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain rallied to beat Russian wild-card Evgeny Donskoy 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Monday in the first round of the St Petersburg Open.
The seventh-seeded Spaniard struggled with his serve early, dropping the first set and trailing 3-1 in the second, but his form picked up and he broke the 121st-ranked Donskoy twice to even the match at one set apiece.
Garcia Lopez broke decisively in the fourth game of the third set and finished the match by serving out to love.
In other first-round action, Italy’s Flavio Cipolla advanced with a 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (8/6) win over qualifier Andrei Vasilevski of Belarus and Rajeev Ram of the US beat Matthias Bachinger of Germany 6-4, 6-4.
Ram broke Bachinger early in the first set, but fell 4-1 down in the second before winning five consecutive games.
Mikhail Youzhny, the 2004 champion and two-time runner-up, is the top-seeded player in the 18th edition of the tournament.
MOSELLE OPEN
AP, METZ, France
Veteran James Blake of the US beat French wild-card Albano Olivetti 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) on Monday, despite being aced 19 times in the first round of the Moselle Open.
Blake won 86 percent of his points on first serve and broke Olivetti three times.
He next faces fourth-seeded Florian Mayer of Germany, who he has defeated in all three of their matches.
The American lost his first six matches of the ATP World Tour season, but has improved to 8-12 overall.
The 20-year-old Olivetti, ranked 213th, was playing in only his fourth match on the ATP World Tour.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to
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