International sports, Australian Open tennis
Longest women’s match on record won by 30-year-old Schiavone
Sydney, Australia (GenevaLunch) - Canton Vaud’s Stanislas Wawrinka beat Andy Roddick in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. In the semi-finals he will meet Roger Federer, who came past Tommy Robredo 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
It is the first time two Swiss men have reached the quarters of a Grand Slam.
Wawrinka played a masterful match against the big serving American, dominating the rallies with his backhand and hitting more aces. In the top half of the draw, Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray are looking in ominous form. Murray and Novak Djokovic easily beat their opponents but 4th seed Robin Soderling lost to Ukrainian Alexander Dolgopolov in five sets.
In the women’s draw, Maria Sharapova was knocked out by German Andrea Petkovic. The best match was won by Italy’s Francesca Schiavone who beat Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4, 1-6, 16-14. The match ended after 4 hours, 44 minutes, setting a record as the longest women’s Grand Slam match in the Open era, notes the Canadian Press news agency.
Schiavone is 30 years old, but playing better than she did in her younger years. The Sunday match was 14 minutes longer than the previous record, set in 2010, also in Sydney, when Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova beat Regina Kulikova.
She will meet top seed Caroline Wozniacki in the quarters.
Links to other sites: Australian Open, Swissinfo
Miami, Florida (GenevaLunch) - Andy Roddick beat giant-killer Tomas Berdych 7-5 6-4 in the final of the Sony Ericsson Miami Masters, Sunday 4 April. The big-serving American ended the Czech’s run of scalps that included Roger Federer, Fernando Verdasco and Robin Soderling. Roddick beat Rafa Nadal in the semi-final.
In the women’s final on Saturday Kim Clijsters crushed an inept Venus Williams 6-2 6-1 in less than an hour. In the semi-finals Clijsters won an epic match against her fellow Belgian come-back queen Justine Henin.
Link: Sony Ericsson Open
Flushing Meadows, New York (GenevaLunch) - World number one Roger Federer beat Leyton Hewitt for the 14th time in a row, but dropped a set before he managed to pull away from the Australian 4-6 6-3 7-5 6-4. Another Swiss, Marco Chiudinelli, lost to 8th seed Nikolay Davydenko. Novak Djokovic came through in four sets, beating Jesse Witten 6-7 6-3 7-6 6-4. Andy Roddick, who reached the Wimbledon final was the shock loser in the men’s draw, going out to 55th-ranked John Isner who has played most of his tennis for the University of Georgia.
Flushing Meadows, New York (GenevaLunch) -The first round of the US Open resulted in a few scares, but no real upsets. Number one seed Roger Federer, in search of his sixth successive title in New York eased past 18 year-old American Devin Britton 6-1 6-3 7-5, dropping serve twice but coming back immediately each time. Andy Roddick, who lost an epic Wimbledon final against Federer this year beat Bjorn Phau 6-1 6-4 6-2.
Federer, who completed a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open in June and set a career record with his 15th Slam title at Wimbledon, became the first player to earn $50 million in career prize money with the victory.
Montreal, Canada (GenevaLunch) - Andy Murray beat Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a resident of La Rippe in canton Vaud. The 6-4, 7-6 victory also pushes Murray past Rafael Nadal to number 2 in the new ATP rankings. This is the highest ranking for a British player since the rankings started in 1973: Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski reached number 4.
Montreal, Canada (GenevaLunch) - Roger Federer was ambushed by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Quebec at the Rogers Cup, losing 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (3).
In his press conference after the match the disappointed Swiss player said “It’s obviously disappointing but you know, that’s what Jo does. He doesn’t make a return for an hour and then he puts in a few and than all of a sudden he’s back in the match. I should never have allowed it but it happened, so it’s a pity.”
Rafael Nadal’s comeback was stopped when he went down 7-6 6-1 to Argentinian Juan del Potro.
Montreal, Canada (GenevaLunch) – The top eight players in the world all reached the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal: it is the first time this has happened since ATP rankings were introduced in 1973. The current top eight in order are Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Juan Martin Del Potro, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nikolay Davydenko.
Montreal, Canada (GenevaLunch) – Rafael Nadal had an easy time in his comeback match after a 10-week break to recover from injured knees. His opponent, fellow Spaniard David Ferrer retired hurt after only 36 minutes of the first set. Ferrer started with one knee strapped and twice called for the trainer before retiring while trailing 3-4. Andy Roddick, the fifth seed, beat Russian Igor Andreev 6-1 7-6 but was not happy with the slow courts and the change in the brand of balls used for the Rogers Cup.
Wimbledon, England (GenevaLunch) – Swiss Roger Federer won an epic match against American Andy Roddick that went to 16-14 in the fifth set. Roddick only lost his service in the final game of the match, which lasted four hours and 16 minutes. The victory broke Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam wins. Sampras was in the Royal Box along with other legends Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver, the only male to twice win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year.
Wimbledon, England (GenevaLunch) - The two women’s semi-finals were totally different but ended with the same result: Williams beats Russia. Serena fought back from a set down, and match-point down, to battle past Elena Dementieva 6-7 7-5 8-6 in the best match of the women’s tournament. Dementieva took the first set in the tie-break with precise ground strokes and an improved service. She then lost her first service game but came back to lead the set before Serena came back to take the set. The third set was hard fought with both players rising to the occasion until Serena finally won the longest ever women’s semi, at two hours 49 minutes.
Wimbledon, England (GenevaLunch) – Swiss Roger Federer gave a lesson in how to deal with a big serving giant when he swept past Croation Ivo Karlovic in straight sets, 6-3 7-5 7-6, breaking serve twice with some superb returns of service and barely dropping a point when on serve himself.
Tommy Haas pulled off the shock of the day with a rarely seen display of serve and volley tennis that proved too much for fourth seed Novak Djokovic. His prize will be an encounter with Federerer.
Wimbledon, England (GenevaLunch) - Andy Murray fought his way past Swiss number two Stanislav Wawrinski in a five-set thriller that lasted more than four hours, taking advantage of the new retractable roof that allowed play to continue until the finish at 22:39.
