Lleyton Hewitt beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 6-4 on Friday to reach the semi-finals of the US Men’s Clay Court Championships at River Oaks Country Club.
Hewitt served for the match in the eighth game but was broken.
Hewitt squandered three match points in the 10th game before securing his 497th career victory. The three other semi-final players have a combined 122 career victories.
In other matches, Bjorn Phau beat Tommy Haas 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; Evgeny Korolev beat Guillermo Canas 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 and Wayne Odesnik outlasted John Isner 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (5).
In yesterday’s semi-finals, Odesnik was to face Phau in the first match, with Hewitt to face Korolev.
Hewitt, formerly ranked No. 1, is trying to reach his first final since he won at Las Vegas in 2007. Last year, Hewitt snapped a string of 10 years with at least one victory. He has been coming back from hip surgery and carries a No. 88 world ranking.
■ANDALUCIA CHAMPIONSHIPS
REUTERS, MADRID
World No. 4 Jelena Jankovic fought back from a set down to beat Italy’s Roberta Vinci 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 in the quarter-finals of the Andalucia Tennis Championships on Friday.
The Serbian second seed, by far the highest-ranked player left in the tournament after Wednesday’s shock exit of world No. l Serena Williams, found it tough going against the 67th-ranked Vinci on the clay in Marbella.
Both players struggled to hold serve in the blustery conditions and Vinci saved three match points in the 10th game of the third set and another in the tiebreak before Jankovic sealed the win at the fifth attempt, taking the tiebreak 8-6.
She was to play Anabel Medina Garrigues yesterday for a place in today’s final after the Spanish fourth seed beat sixth-seeded Italian Sara Errani 6-2, 6-7, 7-5 in their quarter-final earlier on Friday.
The other semi-final will feature Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro, who trounced Williams’ conqueror Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-2, and Romania’s Sorana Cirstea, who came through 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 against Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.
■MPS GROUP CHAMPIONSHIPS
AFP, PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA
Top-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova booked her semi-final berth at the WTA claycourt MPS Group Championships on Friday with a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) victory over seventh-seeded Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko.
Petrova overcame 71 unforced errors with the help of seven aces. The Russian is coming off a “stress reaction” injury to her right foot — which can be a precursor to a stress fracture — and played with both feet taped.
Yesterday she was to face fifth-seeded Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak, a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (9/7) winner over Austrian Tamira Paszek.
“I will gain confidence from this, and that is what I have been lacking,” Petrova said.
Russian Elena Vesnina upended third-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3.
Vesnina needed four match points to subdue Cibulkova, surrendering two of them with unforced errors.
Vesnina will face second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who defeated Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova 6-2, 6-2.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
After pushing for months to get a shot at Colby Covington, Ireland’s Ian Machado Garry is getting to headline the UFC’s final card for this year. However, it will not be against Covington. The promotion on Friday announced that Machado Garry, the No. 7-ranked welterweight, would face ninth-ranked Joaquin Buckley at UFC Fight Night in Tampa, Florida, on Dec. 14. Machado Garry, 26, is undefeated through 15 matches, the most recent coming on June 29 when he beat Michael Page via unanimous decision. Last month, Machado Garry said in an Instagram post that in September he was offered a fight with Covington — the
RSS