Former US Open champions Juan Martin del Potro and Samantha Stosur rallied to win their second-round matches against tough French opponents yesterday at Australian Open warm-up tournaments.
Del Potro beat Nicolas Mahut 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 at the Apia International in Sydney, while Stosur saved two match points and eked out a 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (9/7) win over Kristina Mladenovic at the Hobart International.
Stosur lost all three of her singles matches at the Hopman Cup team event last week and is looking for some confidence heading into her home Grand Slam at Melbourne Park, where she has never advanced past the fourth round.
Photo: AFP
“Any win’s a good win, but when you’ve got to really tough it out and battle through a long match ... you’re probably holding your nerve pretty well,” Stosur said.
The Australian Open begins on Monday.
Earlier, former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s event in Sydney with a 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 victory over Lucie Safarova.
Photo: AFP
Kvitova, the second seed, next faces Tsvetana Pironkova in the semi-finals after the Bulgarian’s 7-6 (7/2), 6-3 win over Sara Errani of Italy.
In the late match, Madison Keys advanced to the semi-finals when Bethanie Mattek-Sands retired with a lower-back injury while trailing 3-2 in the first set.
Mattek-Sands, who beat top seed Agnieszka Radwanska on Tuesday, said she still hoped to play in the Australian Open.
Photo: EPA
In other men’s matches in Sydney, defending champion Bernard Tomic of Australia reached the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia and Marinko Matosevic defeated third seed Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-3, 6-4. Alexandr Dolgopolov beat second seed Jerzy Janowicz of Poland 6-2, 6-2, Denis Istomin defeated No. 7 Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-4 and No. 4 Dmitry Tursunov knocked out Lukas Rosol 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
In the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles top seeds Italian duo Errani and Roberta Vinci knocked out Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Liezel Huber of the US 6-3, 6-2.
In Hobart, defending champion Elena Vesnina retired from her second-round match with a back injury. Spanish qualifier Estrella Cabeza Candela was leading the match 4-6, 6-2, 4-1 when Vesnina quit.
Second seed Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium fared better, beating wild-card Storm Sanders of Australia 4-6, 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (7/5).
At the Heineken Open in Auckland, New Zealand, wild-card Jack Sock of the US pulled off the biggest win of his career when he beat second seed Tommy Hass 6-4, 6-4 in the second round, while Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun also advanced.
The 21-year-old Sock is 14 years younger than Haas and his ranking is nearly 90 places lower than the 12th-ranked German, but Sock started strongly and got early breaks in both sets.
Sock next faces Roberto Batista Agut in the quarter-finals after the Spaniard beat sixth seed Benoit Paire of France 6-3, 6-4.
Lu rallied from a set down to defeat Bradley Klahn of the US 6-7 (3/7), 6-2, 6-3 and next faces qualifier Steve Johnson of the US, who beat Marcos Baghdatis 7-5, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4 in a first-round match held over from Tuesday because of rain and then knocked out fourth seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa 7-5, 6-4.
David Ferrer, the No. 1 seed and defending champion, beat Donald Young of the US 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-1. The Spaniard is seeking his fifth Auckland singles title.
Third seed John Isner also progressed to the quarter-finals with a 7-6 (7/1), 3-6, 6-2 win over Lucas Lacko.
Isner’s participation in the tournament had been in doubt because of an ankle injury, but the American seemed fit in a match that lasted nearly two hours.
In the men’s exhibition tournament in the Melbourne suburb of Kooyong, Tomas Berdych beat Fernando Verdasco 7-5, 6-2 and Stanislas Wawrinka defeated Gilles Simon 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Hong Kong-based cricket team Hung See this weekend found success in their matches in Taiwan, even if none of the results went their way. Hung See played the Chairman’s XI on Saturday morning, the Daredevils that afternoon and PCCT yesterday, with all three home teams winning. The team for Chinese players at the Happy Valley-based Craigengower Cricket Club sends teams on tour to “spread the game of cricket.” This weekend was Hung See’s second trip to Taiwan after visiting Tainan in 2016. “The club has been traveling to all parts of the world since 1982 and the annual tradition continues [with the Taiwan
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Coco Gauff’s dreams of a first women’s singles title in Melbourne were crushed in the quarter-finals by Paula Badosa. World No. 2 Alexander Zverev was ruffled by a stray feather in his men’s singles quarter-final, but he refocused to beat 12th seed Tommy Paul and reach the semi-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to advance the semi-finals. Hsieh and Ostapenko converted eight of 14 break
The San Francisco Giants signed 18-year-old Taiwanese pitcher Yang Nien-hsi (陽念希) to a contract worth a total of US$500,000 (NT $16.39 million). At a press event in Taipei on Wednesday, Jan. 22, the Giants’ Pacific Rim Area scout Evan Hsueh (薛奕煌) presented Yang with a Giants jersey to celebrate the signing. The deal consisted of a contract worth US$450,000 plus a US$50,000 scholarship bonus. Yang, who stands at 188 centimeters tall and weighs 85 kilograms, is of Indigenous Amis descent. With his fastest pitch clocking in at 150 kilometers per hour, Yang had been on Hsueh’s radar since playing in the HuaNan Cup
HARD TO SAY GOODBYE: After Coco Gauff dispatched Belinda Bencic in the fourth round, she wrote ‘RIP TikTok USA’ and drew a broken heart on a television camera lens Defending champion Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while compatriot Chan Hao-ching on Saturday dominated her opponents in the second round, as world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka swept into the quarter-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia toppled Hungary’s Timea Babos and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US 6-4, 6-3, hitting 24 winners and converting three of seven break points in 1 hour, 18 minutes at 1573 Arena. Although rivals at last year’s Australian Open — where Hsieh and Belgium’s Elise Mertens beat Ostapenko and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok 6-1, 7-5
RSS