Wednesday, 4 November, 2009

There were mixed fortunes for Barclays ATP World Tour Finals contenders Fernando Verdasco and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the Valencia Open.

Verdasco is currently occupying the last of the eight qualifying places for the prestigious end-of-season tournament in London later this month, which features the top players from 2009. And the Spaniard had an easy time of things in his first-round match against Oscar Hernandez, losing only two games before his opponent retired with Verdasco leading 6-1 0-1.

It was a different story for Frenchman Tsonga, though, who faces a race to be fit for next week's Paris Masters, the final points-scoring event, after retiring in the third set of his match against Mikhail Youzhny with a left wrist injury.

Things began well enough for the third seed when he took the first set on a tie-break but he did not win another game and called it a day with Youzhny leading 6-7 (3/7) 6-0 3-0.

Gilles Simon, who is an outside bet to appear at the O2, kept his faint hopes alive with a hard-fought 6-4 4-6 6-3 victory over Tomas Berdych to become the first man to reach the quarter-finals.

Sixth seed Gael Monfils was a second-round casualty, though, the Frenchman going down 6-2 7-5 to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

In other first-round matches, Janko Tipsarevic beat Victor Hanescu 6-4 6-3 while Feliciano Lopez saw off qualifier Alberto Martin 7-5 6-3 in an all-Spanish encounter.

Federer into last eight
Mixed fortunes duo for in Valencia
Murray finding his rhythm
Bartoli opens with win
Haas hit with swine flu
Murray exonerates Agassi
Serena takes family honours again