Second seed Tomas Berdych defeated Benoit Paire of France 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) in a first-round match in hot and humid conditions at the Japan Open yesterday.
Berdych used a powerful serve and strong play from the baseline to win in 1 hour, 44 minutes under a blazing sun at Ariake Colosseum.
The Czech player raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set, breaking Paire in the second and fourth games. Paire finally held serve to make it 5-1, but Berdych closed out the set in the next game on serve at love.
The second set was on serve until the fifth game, when Berdych broke Paire to go 3-2 up. It seemed Berdych would roll to the win, but in the 10th game Paire battled back, ripping a backhand winner to level at 5-5.
Both players then held serve to send it to a tiebreaker, where Berdych prevailed 8-6 after saving a set point when he was 6-5 down.
“I should have finished it when I was serving at 5-4 in the second set, but then I lost my serve and was even down set point in the tiebreak,” Berdych said.
Paire, ranked 52nd, made some nice passing shots in the second set, but was ultimately hampered by a high number of unforced errors in the loss.
In earlier action, seventh seed Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland was made to work before ousting Japanese wild-card Hiroki Moriya 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. The match was even in the final set until Wawrinka broke Moriya to move ahead 4-3.
Also yesterday, Lukas Lacko of Slovakia scored a 6-0, 6-2 win over Alberto Ramos of Spain, while Serbia’s Viktor Troicki defeated Robin Haase of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-3.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
LIVERPOOL WIN: The 50th Champions League goal by Mohamed Salah helped the leaders of the Premier League to keep their perfect record intact Real Madrid’s big stars on Tuesday turned on the style to revive the Spanish giant’s faltering UEFA Champions League title defense. Galacticos Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham all scored in a thrilling 3-2 win against Serie A leaders Atalanta BC. However, Madrid still had to ride their luck as Mateo Retegui fired over from in front of goal in stoppage-time when handed a golden chance to level the game. It was only Madrid’s third win in the competition’s revamped league phase and leaves the 15-time champions in the unseeded playoff positions in 18th place. “It’s a very important win. Not everyone wins
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS