Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun upset top seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa 7-6 (8/6), 6-3 on Wednesday night in chilly conditions in the second round of the Delray Beach Open.
The 31-year-old Taiwanese No. 1 set up a quarter-final against fifth seed Adrian Mannarino of France, a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Denis Kudla of nearby Boca Raton.
World No. 61 Lu is seeking his first ATP Tour singles title.
Fourth seed Ivo Karlovic of Croatia also advanced, outlasting 18-year-old Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-2).
Karlovic, the giant Croatian who turns 36 at the end of the month, next faces seventh seed Steve Johnson in the quarter-finals. Johnson topped 17-year-old wild-card Andrey Rublev of Russia 6-3, 6-3.
Anderson’s ouster, together with second seed John Isner’s loss to Marinko Matosevic on Tuesday night, marked the first time the top two seeds have lost before the quarter-finals since 2006. It also was the 22nd time in the tournament’s 23-year history that the top seed failed to win the tournament. Mardy Fish in 2009 was the only No. 1 to capture the title.
“That’s not the match I wanted to play,” said Anderson, who lost to Kei Nichikori in the Memphis Open final last week. “I felt sluggish in the conditions, and he stuck to his game plan and was hitting through the ball. I wasn’t putting any returns in the court.”
Lu played a consistent, no-frills style of tennis that forced Anderson to take chances. The South African, who lives and trains in Delray Beach, was ineffective in his service games as Lu bunted reflex returns back into the court.
After playing on serve through the first set, Lu took a 6-2 lead in the tiebreaker, largely on Anderson’s unforced errors. The top seed fought back to 6-6 with a forehand that skidded off the baseline, but he netted a forehand and then a backhand to hand Lu the set.
After breaking Lu’s serve in the first game of the second set, Anderson immediately lost his own serve and never recovered.
Karlovic, who could be competing on the ATP Champions Tour for senior players, used his serve to overpower Kokkinakis.
“If I didn’t come up against a guy who serves out of a tree like that, I would have had a good chance to keep going,” Kokkinakis said about Karlovic’s 21 aces, including four in a row — one on a second serve — in the 10th game of the first set.
Neither player was able to break serve, though each had chances. Karlovic double-faulted twice in the second game of the match to set up break points, but escaped with strong serves.
Kokkinakis saved two break points while serving at 2-3 in the second set.
Kokkinakis had another chance with Karlovic serving at 3-2 in the first-set tiebreaker.
After a crafty exchange near the net, the Australian attempted a lob over Karlovic’s left shoulder, but the ball fell short, allowing the Croatian to hit a high backhand-volley winner.
“Trying that lob was a pretty dumb play,” said Kokkinakis, who gained attention when he played two five-setters during the Australian Open. “That point really killed me.”
At 1-2 in the second set, with Karlovic planted at the net, Kokkinakis drilled a forehand right at his opponent, forcing Karlovic to duck as the ball landed centimeters inside the baseline.
“He can really hit those forehands, so it was really difficult for me,” said Karlovic, who is currently ranked world No. 29, down from a career high of No. 14 in 2008. “He’s unbelievable. He’s young and he will be very, very good. I was just hanging in there and serving really well.”
OPEN 13
Fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain and seventh seed Gael Monfils of France both won in straight sets to reach the Open 13 quarter-finals on Wednesday.
World No. 16 Bautista Agut broke Canadian Vasek Pospisil’s serve twice in a 7-5, 6-4 victory and next faces either sixth seed David Goffin of Belgium or Austria’s Dominic Thiem.
Monfils had 13 aces, saving all three break points he faced, as he beat Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov 6-3, 6-2. He next plays either top seed Milos Raonic of Canada or Italy’s Simone Bolelli, who were due to play yesterday.
Sergiy Stakhovsky also advanced to the last eight — with 15 aces in a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win against Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff — and the Ukrainian next faces either second seed Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland or Frenchman Benoit Paire.
In the remaining first-round matches, fifth seed Gilles Simon of France was leading 7-5, 2-0 against Pierre-Hugues Herbert when his fellow countryman retired with a shoulder injury.
Goffin broke Polish player Jerzy Janowicz’s serve four times in a 6-4, 6-2 win and Bolelli beat fellow countryman Luca Vanni 6-4, 7-6 (7/4).
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS