Eighth-seeded Kei Nishikori became the first Japanese player to win the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships title on Sunday, defeating sixth-seeded Canadian Milos Raonic 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-0 in two hours and nine minutes. The 22-year-old Nishikori received $308,130 in prize money and 500 South African Airways ATP Ranking points, while 21-year-old Raonic earned $138,920 and 300 points. “I…
Li Na defeated Agnieszka Radwanska in her quarterfinals match at the 2012 China Open. Li had won the pair’s last two meetings very routinely during the summer season—6-2, 6-1 and 6-1, 6-1—and this time, the seventh seed was in control again, tucking away a 57-minute first set and pulling away completely from 1-2 in the second…
World number two Roger Federer, who has landed in China for the 2012 Shanghai Rolex Masters, has received a death threat from an anonymous blogger on a Chinese Web site, baidu.com. The threat has heightened the security detail around not only Federer, but the other stars slated to appear at the event. The message, posted by a user…
World number three and Olympic Gold Medalist Andy Murray has advanced to the semifinals of the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships, after his 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 win over seventh-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka. Murray improved to an 8-4 record against Wawrinka, in earning his 50th win of 2012 and is on a 10-match winning streak. Murray will meet sixth-seeded Canadian…
World number nine-ranked Janko Tipsarevic has advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2012 Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships, defeating qualifier Marco Chiudinelli 6-4, 6-2. The third-seeded Tipsarevic hit 10 aces and saved all six break points against his serve to defeat Chiudinelli in just under two hours. The Serbian evened his record against Chiudinelli to a 1-1…
World number two-ranked Maria Sharapova advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2012 China Open in Beijing, winning the first eight games of her match against Polona Hercog then, after the Slovenian qualifier snuck two games to close to 6-0, 2-2, reeled off four more games to win, 6-0, 6-2. A day earlier, Hercog came back from…
Eleventh-seeded Ana Ivanovic of Serbia was upset Wednesday at the China Open, falling to Switzerland’s Romina Oprandi in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3. Oprandi’s win was the third-best win of her career, following wins over then-world number two-ranked Kim Clijsters last year and then-number 11-ranked Francesca Schiavone at the Australian Open earlier this year. "Romina’s a tricky…
Great Britain’s Andy Murray defeated Lukas Lacko 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the quarterfinals of the 2012 Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships. Murray, who needed just 57 minutes to defeat Lacko, has now won nine matches in a row, including taking home the Gold Medal at the 2012 London Games, and his win last month in…
The 10th-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark was given all she could handle from Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-Wei, and unable to hit through the Taiwanese’s spins and angles for most of the match, trailing a set and 3-0 at one point, even facing points for a 4-0 deficit in the second set, but she kept fighting and…
World number four-ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain has targeted late December as his comeback date from a knee injury at the 2012 Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi. Nadal hasn’t played since losing in the second round of Wimbledon in June, and missed representing his nation at the 2012 London Games and the 2012 U.S. Open in…