Murray loses to Verdasco again
LONDON:ANDY Murray’s revival in his penultimate tournament of the season was ended in straight sets by a familiar foe, Fernando Verdasco, in the Shenzhen Open quarter-finals on Friday.
Britain’s former world number one had made decent strides with two previous wins this week as he continued to make promising progress on his comeback from hip surgery in January, but he was well beaten 6-4 6-4 by the Spanish veteran Verdasco.
It was a repeat of the 34-yearold’s straight sets victory over Murray in the second round of the US Open in August.
The two wins in a month came after Verdasco had previously suffered eight consecutive defeats to the Scot.
WANG LIMPS OUT OF WUHAN OPEN
WUHAN:RISING star Wang Qiang’s dream run at the Wuhan Open in China ended in heartbreak on Friday as an injury forced her to retire from the semi-final, with Anett Kontaveit leading 6-2, 2-1. The 34th-ranked Wang was moving gingerly before the final game of the first set, and got some on-court treatment on her legs before play resumed. But the home favourite played only three games in the second set before signalling to the umpire that she had to retire.
SERENA PULLS PLUG ON CHINA OPEN
BEIJING: American great Serena Williams was left out of the China Open tennis draw on Friday as she appeared to call time on her season following her meltdown at the US Open.
Williams’ name, along with that of her sister Venus, did not appear on a list of 64 players ahead of the start of the tournament in Beijing, one of the women’s tour’s mandatory events. It comes less than three weeks after the tempestuous US Open final, where Williams, 37, accused the umpire of lying and sexism in an angry rant during her 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Japan’s Naomi Osaka.