The Star Online: Sports
The Star Online: Sports |
- Top-seeded Isner into quarterfinals at Newport
- Two generations with two different views of US Open
- Australian cyclist Hibberd killed in Italy
| Top-seeded Isner into quarterfinals at Newport Posted: 06 Jul 2011 04:04 PM PDT NEWPORT, Rhode Island (AP): Top-seeded John Isner rode his big serve into the quarterfinals of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships, beating Arnaud Clement 7-6 (4), 6-4 in the second round. The 6-foot 9-inch Isner closed out the match Wednesday with his 11th ace and won 80 percent of his first-serve points. Isner entered the tournament when defending champion Mardy Fish withdrew because he was selected for the US Davis Cup team. The 26-year old Isner will face Alex Bogomolov in an all-American semifinal. Isner took control when he broke Clement in the seventh game of the second set, grabbing a 4-3 lead when Clement double-faulted on the final point. Knowing he has an overpowering serve, Isner felt he was in a great position in the match. It was like the first set, but this time he made sure he didn't waste it. "When I get off to an early break, that's when I feel like I'm in control," he said. "I feel like I play my best when I'm ahead. It didn't happen in the first set, but it did in the second." Isner broke to go up 4-3 in the first set, but Clement rallied to win the next two games. They played under slightly cool and breezy conditions, with light fog rolling in at times to block sunshine that was peaking out - a stark contrast to the sunny, hot, humid conditions Isner faced in his first match a day earlier. A No. 1-seeded player has never won the title in the 35 years of this grass-court tournament. "I'm not thinking about that," he said, quickly changing the subject. "I'm just trying to get to the semifinals." Bogomolov overcame a rough start, downing Ruben Bemelmans, 2-6, 6-0, 6-1. The fifth-seeded Bogomolov dropped the first set in 23 minutes before winning the next 11 games. "It's beautiful, that's what you want to get into - a comfortable lead where you can relax and hit your shots," he said of the run. He felt it was a similar turnaround to what he made in his opening-match on Monday. "After (my) first match I said the same thing - I switched my game completely," he said. "He was returning much better when I hit flat serves. He was in a groove from the back (line) since we started. Then in the first game of the second, I started hitting to his forehand, which was his weaker shot. After I got rolling I gained some confidence and hit some winners." The victory earned him a berth in his third quarterfinal this season. In another second-round match, sixth-seeded Olivier Rochus got past Nicolas Mahut, 6-4, 7-6 (3), winning six straight points after falling behind 0-2 in the tiebreak. He saved 16 of 18 break points in the match, raising his career record to 9-2 in Newport. "When you save that many break points, of course it helps, it changes the match," said the 5-foot, 6-inch Rochus. "Maybe I was lucky at times, but that's tennis." In other play: Matthew Ebden beat Matthias Bachinger, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4; Edouard Roger-Vasselin defeated Jimmy Wang, 7-5, 6-4; and Michael Yani advanced when Tommy Hass retired with a lower back injury when trailing 2-5 in the first. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Two generations with two different views of US Open Posted: 06 Jul 2011 04:00 PM PDT COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AP): One is a 13-year-old, getting ready for eighth grade, spending the start of her US Open week wondering if she should be asking these players for autographs or playing beside them. The other is 55, a winner of six majors and all but retired - yet still with enough game to grind through qualifying and earn a spot in what she says will be her last pro tournament. Mariel Galdiano and Betsy King both have tee times at the Broadmoor on Thursday, even though in the golf world they are playing from completely different sets of tees. Such is life at the US Women's Open, where the world's best try to enhance their resumes while competing against each other - along with dozens of amateurs, qualifiers and other underdogs with big dreams. "I've been telling her lately, put your head down, look at people's feet, just focus," said Galdiano's father, Roger, who also serves as her coach and caddie. "I want her to think of it as practice." The reality that it is anything but practice comes shining through at every turn this week the for Honolulu native, who picked up her first golf club about seven years ago, won her first tournament a few years after that and played well enough in qualifying last month, a few days before her 13th birthday, to earn one of 156 spots this week on the East Course. On Wednesday, she played a practice round with another Hawaiian, Michelle Wie - "Very friendly," she said - took part in a kids clinic on the driving range with Annika Sorenstam and passed Natalie Gulbis in the tunnel leading to the course. "She looked down at my shoes and said, 'Nice shoes,"' Galdiano said, glancing down at her white and aqua golf sneakers. "I said, 'Thank you.' Pretty cool." Standing at right around 5 feet and with an average driving distance of 220 yards, Galdiano is not the next Michelle Wie, whose formative years have been defined by mishaps on the men's tour and a long list of lessons learned about what happens when you go for too much, too soon. "The way we're going to do it is, we're just going to go through our routine," Galdiano's dad said. "I'm not going to sign her up to play against the men and stuff. We're just going to try to see how the progression goes. Depending on how good she gets, we'll see from there. High school and college - that will be a good experience." While Galdiano's future is ahead of her, King concedes her slow withdrawal from the spotlight came for a reason most elite athletes are loathe to acknowledge. "To be honest, if I could play well enough to play, I'd still be playing," she said. "Ninety-nine percent of the people that I know who retired - that's why they retired. They just didn't play well enough to keep playing." King saw the beginning of the end coming in the early 2000s, when the two-time LPGA money leader started having more and more trouble simply making the cut. When her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2005, then her mother with Alzheimer's a year later, she realized it was time to focus elsewhere. Her folks passed away. King started doing charity work in Africa. She still played the game, but not in any real competitive sense. "I've looked at other players that have tried to come back and I said, 'I'll never do that,"' she said. Golf, however, does not let go easily. Neither does the drive of a champion. King has won 34 LPGA events, is the first woman to pass the $5 million and $6 million marks in prize money and has been a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame since 1995. Earlier this year, she decided she wanted to play in a Legends event and thought the US Open qualifier the week before would be a good tuneup for that. "I really surprised myself," she said. " I played OK. I played well enough. I'm very happy to be here. Obviously the golf course is a little bit harder than where I qualified." The Broadmoor will be the first US Women's Open course to play longer than 7,000 yards. The USGA, as always, prides itself on setting up tough courses, with long rough and narrow fairways. The greens on this course, situated near the mountains on the southwest side of Colorado Springs (Locals will tell you: All putts run away from the Will Rogers Monument on Cheyenne Mountain), are difficult even when the resort players tee it up. It figures the course will yield a winning score of around par - more common for the USGA than the 16-under 268 Rory McIlroy posted to win the men's Open at Congressional last month. In short, it's the sort of event that figures to play to the 20- or 30-something crowd - Yani Tseng, Paula Creamer, Stacy Lewis - more than an eighth grader or a Hall of Famer in her 50s. "My goal this week is to feel comfortable standing over the ball," Galdiano said. "One shot at a time works best for me. When I think about score too much, it throws me off." And for King - well, she says making the cut at the US Open would be a great way to say goodbye. Some swing thoughts, though, die hard. "Well, if I win, I can always change my mind," she said. "That would be a real miracle, believe me." Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Australian cyclist Hibberd killed in Italy Posted: 06 Jul 2011 03:58 PM PDT MELBOURNE, Australia (AP): Australian road cyclist Carly Hibberd has been killed after being hit by a car while training in Italy. Australia's department of foreign affairs and trade said Thursday that the 26-year-old Hibberd from Queensland state died after she was struck by a car on Wednesday in Como in Italy's north. Hibberd moved to Italy in 2009 to pursue her career as a professional road cyclist, joining the Cassina Rizzardi A Style Fionucci team at the start of this season. Her fatal accident follows the death of Belgium's Wouter Weylandt in the Giro d'Italia on May 9. Australian female cyclist Amy Gillet was killed and five of her teammates injured after a car ran into them as they trained for a road race in Germany in 2005. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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