ROTTERDAM
Berdych to face Wawrinka
Defending champion Tomas Berdych took less than an hour to beat Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-2, 6-1 on Saturday and reach the final in Rotterdam, where he will bid for his 11th career title against Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka. The fourth-seeded Wawrinka beat second-seeded Milos Raonic of Canada 7-6(3), 7-6(7). Earlier, third-seeded Berdych won 95 percent of first service points, hit 14 winners and converted four of five break-point chances. “My game was good and the game plan was even better,” said Berdych, who is 4-6 overall against Simon. “We have worked really hard on my serve. I was able to control it.” Wawrinka, the 2013 Australian Open champion, is chasing his ninth career title. He saved two set points at 4-6 in the second set tiebreaker.
DIAMOND GAMES
Petkovic, Navarro in final
Third-seeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany beat unseeded Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic 7-6(2), 7-6(6) on Saturday to reach the final, where she faces fifth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain. In a laborious match, Petkovic and Zahlavova Strycova broke each other four times in the first set. Zahlavova Strycova served for it at 6-5, but Petkovic forced a tiebreaker. Petkovic looked in command serving at 4-3 in the second set, but Zahlavova Strycova broke her serve to make it 4-4. Earlier, Suarez Navarro had little trouble beating eighth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, breaking the Czech player’s serve five times in a 6-2, 6-2 win. Petkovic, who won three titles last year, is going for her sixth career title, while Suarez Navarro is bidding for her second.
BRAZIL OPEN
Cuevas eyes third ATP title
Qualifier Luca Vanni of Italy defeated home-crowd favorite Joao Souza 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-4 on Saturday, reaching his first ATP final. The 149th-ranked Vanni won the final three games to clinch the victory after nearly three hours. Souza, ranked 110th, was playing the clay-court tournament on a wild-card invitation. Vanni is set to play the final against fifth-seeded Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, who cruised to a 6-4, 6-3 victory over sixth-seeded Santiago Giraldo of Colombia. The 32nd-ranked Cuevas will be trying to win his third ATP title.
MEMPHIS OPEN
Nishikori scrapes into final
Kei Nishikori is on track for a three-peat after a narrow semi-final victory on Saturday. The Japanese barely averted an upset against Sam Querrey. He lost the first set before winning consecutive tiebreakers for a 5-7, 7-6(5), 7-6(5) victory over the American. World No. 5 Nishikori will meet second seed Kevin Anderson in the final on Sunday. The South African also dropped the first set before recovering to beat American Donald Young 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Anderson broke Young at love in the seventh game of the final set for a 4-3 lead and held twice for the triumph, his fifth in six meetings with the 25-year-old US left-hander. Anderson has lost his past five ATP finals appearances, most recently in March last year at Acapulco to Grigor Dimitrov. His only ATP titles came at the 2011 South African Open and in 2012 at Delray Beach, Florida, where he now resides. The 28-year-old staved off four break points in the second and third sets to triumph in just under two hours. Nishikori faced a tough opponent in Querrey, the world No. 41. Last year’s US Open finalist trailed 2-4 in the final set tiebreaker, before winning five of the next six points to scrape through.
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
Batting great Virat Kohli yesterday announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket, just days before India name their squad for a tour to England. Kohli, who scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, posted his decision on Instagram five days after India captain Rohit Sharma called time on his own Test career. Since making his debut in 2011, Kohli struck 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out, mainly batting at number four in the order. “It’s been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket,” the
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