Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun advanced to the third round of the ATP Tour Winston-Salem Open in straight sets on Tuesday.
Lu, who upset world No. 5 Tomas Berdych last week in Cincinnati, recorded his 20th win of the season as he defeated world No. 88 Blaz Rola of Slovenia 6-4, 7-5.
World No. 38 Lu, who served seven aces to Rola’s 10, although the Slovenian also served seven double-faults, saved the only break-point chance he faced and converted two of eight to complete the victory in 1 hour, 26 minutes.
Photo: AFP
Lu traveled to North Carolina after his exit in Cincinnati and has been training hard at Wake Forest University, two hours of tennis and two hours of weights each day, but still found time to join in the Ice Bucket Challenge, a social media campaign to raise awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
After fulfilling the challenge by pouring a bucket of ice water over his head, Lu then challenged his teammates, including his brother, Thomas, to participate.
The Taiwanese ninth seed was due to face eighth seed Marcel Granollers of Spain for a place in the quarter-finals yesterday after the world No. 42 beat Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday.
Photo: AFP
Lu defeated Granollers 7-6 (8/6), 7-5 in their only previous meeting at the Rogers Cup in Toronto a couple of weeks ago.
In Tuesday’s other action, top-seeded John Isner shook off a slow start to beat fellow American Bradley Klahn 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.
Isner, a two-time winner at Winston-Salem, served 13 aces and broke Klahn’s serve twice in the second set to advance in the final warmup before next week’s US Open.
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Three of the top six seeds were eliminated in the second round at the Wake Forest Tennis Center: Third-seeded Tommy Robredo of Spain lost to France’s Nicolas Mahut 6-1, 7-6 (7-0); fourth-seeded Leonardo Mayer of Argentina was upset by Belgian qualifier David Goffin 6-3, 6-1; while Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz stunned No. 6 seed Joao Sousa of Portugal 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5).
However, No. 2 seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa overcame a shaky second set to beat France’s Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 2-6, 6-4
Robredo had his serve broken three times in the first set by the 104th-ranked Mahut, who then took four mini-breaks from Robredo in winning the second-set tiebreaker.
“I knew he was in for a tough week after Cincinnati,” Mahut said of Robredo, who beat top-ranked Novak Djokovic in advancing to the quarter-finals of last week’s Western and Southern Open. “I knew if I had a good start, it would be difficult for him. The second set was tougher, but it was still a good finish. I had to play more aggressive in the tiebreak, but it was still good.”
Goffin, who won his first ATP Tour event last month in Kitzbuhel, Austria, extended his winning streak to 24 matches. That includes ATP Challenger Tour event wins in the Netherlands, Poland and Finland.
Earlier, Anderson served 16 aces and almost as many service winners, but Mannarino used his ground game to force Anderson into 24 errors in the second set, breaking his serve twice en route to taking the set and evening the match at 1-1.
Anderson got a key service break in the seventh game of the third set and closed out the match with two aces and a service winner in the deciding game.
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