New Delhi: Achantha Sharath Kamal and Mouma Das suffered contrasting semifinal defeats in their respective singles as India rounded up its Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships campaign without a single gold medal, here on Friday. At least six of the eight semifinals, including doubles, featured host players but none of them could make the summit clash as India bagged nine medals, including two silvers. The most disappointing result for the hosts...
06:01 PM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: Top-ranked Serena Williams outlasted Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-3, 0-6, 7-5 to reach the Madrid Open semi-finals on Friday. Williams appeared to wear down against the scrappy Spaniard on the red clay court, and after getting blanked in the second set she fell behind 4-2 in the decider. But the defending champion rallied back to break Medina Garrigues' serve twice to move on. "It was definitely a battle," Williams said....
05:36 PM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: The Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna entered the quarter-finals of the men's doubles event while Leander Paes and Sania Mirza made exit with their respective partners at the Madrid Open, on Thursday. The sixth-seeded pair of Bhupathi and Bopanna defeated Argentine pair of Juan Monaco and Horacio Zeballos 6-3 3-6 10-5 in a hard-fough contest to make it to the last eight of the competition, which...
10:57 AM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: Roger Federer vowed to get straight back on the practice court after the world number two was dumped out in the third round of the Madrid Open by Japan's Kei Nishikori on Thursday. Defending champion at the clay Masters event in the Spanish capital, Federer was playing his first tournament after a seven-week rest following defeat to Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals at Indian Wells. The 31-year-old Swiss is...
09:15 AM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: Second-ranked Roger Federer was ousted by Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 in the third round of the Madrid Open on Thursday. After recovering from Nishikori's strong start, it looked like Federer found his stride after roaring back in the second set. But Nishikori reasserted his ground game in the decider after breaking the defending champion for a 3-1 advantage and held on for the surprising victory to...
10:38 PM, May 09, 2013
New Delhi: Soumyajit Ghosh and Mouma Das secured a silver in the mixed doubles at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships here Thursday, a day on which India made sure of at least six other medals. India's top player Sharath Kamal assured himself of a medal after edging past old Singapore rival Yang Zi 11-3, 11-7, 9-11, 9-11, 8-11, 11-8, 11-9 for a place in the semi-finals. Losing semifinalists across categories...
08:27 PM, May 09, 2013
Madrid : Rafael Nadal cruised into the Madrid Open quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-3 victory Thursday over Mikhail Youzhny that featured an array of creative shots. Top-ranked Serena Williams and No. 2 Maria Sharapova also reached the quarterfinals in straight sets. Having already established control by winning Youzhny's second service game, Nadal kept a point going with a deft no-look backhand flick before nailing a winner down the line to...
07:01 PM, May 09, 2013
Madrid: Sania Mirza and her American pair Bethanie Mattek-Sands made an early exit from the Madrid Open after losing their second round match in straight sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova on Thursday. The fifth seed Indo-American pair lost 5-7 1-6 to the unseeded Russian-Czech pair in one hour and 10 minutes in the second round of the euro 4,033,254 clay court event. Sania and Bethanie could convert just...
04:06 PM, May 09, 2013
Madrid: Rafael Nadal avoided a similar fate to beaten world number one Novak Djokovic when he dismissed French young gun Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-4 to claim a place in the third round of the Madrid Open on Wednesday. Serb Djokovic fell to another promising youngster, Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov, in the second round of the Masters event on Tuesday but Nadal showed why he has the best record on clay in...
11:03 PM, May 08, 2013
New Delhi: Indian men suffered a 0-3 thrashing at the hands of a much superior Singapore as the hosts settled for a silver medal in the team event at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships here on Wednesday. The Indian paddlers displayed flashes of brilliance to create some excitement among the home supporters at the Thyagaraj Stadium here but the difference in class between the two teams proved decisive at...
08:45 PM, May 08, 2013
Madrid: Ekaterina Makarova of Russia ousted third-seeded Victoria Azarenka 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday to reach the third round of the Madrid Open. Azarenka, runner-up in Madrid the past two years, lost her temper, broke her racket and argued with the chair umpire. The Belarusian double-faulted five times and got in only just over half of her first serves, compared to a 60 per cent first-serve accuracy for the 24-ranked...
06:58 PM, May 08, 2013
Melbourne: Australian tennis authorities have rushed to ensure Bernard Tomic receives support ahead of the French Open after his father and coach was suspended from ATP events pending an investigation into allegations of assault. John Tomic was charged with assault after allegedly head-butting Bernard's hitting partner, Thomas Drouet, on Saturday outside a Madrid hotel. The case will be heard by a Spanish court on May 18 and the ATP on...
06:39 PM, May 08, 2013
Singapore: The WTA has signed a five-year deal to host its season-ending championship in Singapore starting in 2014. WTA chairman and chief executive Stacey Allaster said the top eight singles players and top eight women's doubles teams will compete for $6.5 million in prize money from next year, describing the deal with Singapore as a "record breaker" for "the WTA's crown-jewel season finale." The WTA announced the deal for 2014-18...
06:34 PM, May 08, 2013
Madrid: Novak Djokovic was dumped out of the Madrid Open in the second round on Tuesday when he went over on his ankle and incurred the wrath of the locals on the way to a shock 7-6 6-7 6-3 reverse to Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. The world number one, who had a bye in the opening round, was already a break down to the unseeded 21-year-old in the second set when...
08:06 AM, May 08, 2013
Madrid: Roger Federer looked as sharp as ever in his first match following a two-month layoff as he beat Czech Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-3 at the Madrid Open on Tuesday. The Swiss chose an eye-catching mint-green shirt for his first match since losing to Rafa Nadal at the Indian Wells Masters in March and secured a 12th victory over Stepanek in 14 meetings. The victory set up a possible third-round...
11:30 PM, May 07, 2013
New Delhi: Indian women team's coach Bhawani Mukherjee on Tuesday accused reigning national champion K Shamini of shirking away from taking on top players and has lodged a complaint with the TTFI about her "lackadaisical attitude." Mukherjee informed that Shamini on Tuesday refused to play against England in the team championship semi-final as she was pitted against higher-ranked players. "She (Shamini) said that "Sir, I am not comfortable playing Joanna...
11:25 PM, May 07, 2013
Madrid: World number one and defending champion Serena Williams continued her serene progress at the Madrid Open tennis when she eased past Spanish wild card Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-2, 7-5 in the second round on Tuesday. Chasing a fourth title of the year and the 50th of her career, Williams had too much power for the slightly-built Dominguez Lino, who nonetheless managed to unsettle her illustrious opponent with some clever...
08:48 PM, May 07, 2013
Madrid: Fifth seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza advanced to the next round at the Mutua Madrid Open with a three-set win over Daniela Hantuchova and Anabel Medina Garrigues. The Indo-American pair have been in terrific form this year, winning Premier-level titles in Brisbane and Dubai and finishing runners-up in Stuttgart. The duo were down a break in the first set at 4-3, 5-4 and 6-5 yet broke serve each...
07:36 PM, May 07, 2013
New Delhi: Indian men paddlers entered the finals of the team championship event after beating England, while the women went down fighting against the same opponents in their semi-final encounter at the 19th Commonwealth Championship here Tuesday. Even as men prevailed 3-2, the women's team lost 2-3 to settle for a bronze medal. Indian men will now take on mighty Singapore, who defeated Malaysia 3-0, in the finals Wednesday. The...
06:15 PM, May 07, 2013
Madrid: Milos Raonic said he needed to iron out "crucial mistakes" after the Canadian 12th seed squeaked past former world number three Nikolay Davydenko 7-5, 7-6 in the opening round of the Madrid Open on Monday. Raonic, at 22 almost 10 years younger than his unseeded Russian opponent, managed one break of the Davydenko serve to secure the first set and edged the second-set tiebreak 7-5 to set up a...
11:59 AM, May 07, 2013
