Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Tursunov falls, avoids Federer matchup

   At least he won't have to play Roger Federer.
   Unseeded Dmitry Tursunov, a longtime Sacramento-area resident, lost to wild card Adrian Mannarino of France 6-2, 6-2 Monday in the first round of the $3.78 BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.
   Mannarino will face the third-seeded Federer, who won his hometown tournament in Basel, Switzerland, for the fifth time last week and received a first-round bye in Paris. Federer, 30, has never won the tournament.
   Tursunov, a 28-year-old Moscow native, is 0-3 against Federer. In their last meeting, the Swiss maestro won 6-4, 6-2 in the first round of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
   The 40th-ranked Tursunov played in the prestigious Paris tournament for the first time since 2008. After undergoing three operations on his left ankle or foot between April 2009 and February 2010, he was not ranked high enough to play in the main draw there the past two years.
   Tursunov's first-round opponent the last time he played in the Paris indoors? Mannarino. Tursunov won that encounter 6-3, 6-2 before retiring at 2-6, 3-4 against Novak Djokovic, then ranked third in the world, in the second round.
   Also Monday, qualifier Santiago Giraldo, a Colombian who won the 2009 Sacramento Challenger, lost to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 in the first round.
   Milos Raonic, the reigning champion of the SAP Open in San Jose, and 2009 SAP Open winner Radek Stepanek also fell in the opening round.
   Raonic, a 20-year-old Canadian, lost to veteran Julien Benneteau of France 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-4, and Stepanek, a 32-year-old Czech, was eliminated by Florian Mayer of Germany 7-5, 6-3.
   Schnack coasts -- Fourth-seeded Yasmin Schnack, a resident of Elk Grove in the Sacramento area, dispatched Denise Starr, 16, of Staten Island, N.Y., 6-2, 6-0 in the second round of qualifying for the $75,000 Goldwater Women's Tennis Classic in Phoenix.
    Schnack, a 23-year-old UCLA graduate, is scheduled to meet seventh-seeded Shelby Rogers, last year's USTA girls 18 national champion from Charleston, S.C., today for a berth in the main draw.
   New rankings -- Following are this week's world rankings of professional players with Northern California ties (change from last week in parentheses):
Men
   Bob Bryan, 1998 NCAA doubles champion from Stanford -- No. 1 in doubles (no change), unranked in singles.
   Mike Bryan, 1998 NCAA doubles champion from Stanford -- No. 1 in doubles (no change), unranked in singles.
  John Paul Fruttero, Cal All-American in 2001 and 2002 -- Career-high No. 123 in doubles (+8), 1,229 in singles (no change).
  Kiryl Harbatsiuk, three-time Big Sky Conference MVP (2009-11) at Sacramento State -- No. 760 in singles (+3, No. 1,247 in doubles (no change).
   Mark Knowles, Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis (2001-07, 2009-11) -- No. 43 in doubles (no change), unranked in singles.
   Scott Lipsky, 2002 NCAA doubles runner-up from Stanford -- No. 28 in doubles (-2), unranked in singles.
   David Martin, 2002 NCAA doubles runner-up from Stanford -- No. 101 in doubles (+3), No. 661 in singles (+9).
    Conor Niland, 2006 Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year and two-time All-American at Cal -- No. 195 in singles (-1), unranked in doubles.
   Sam Querrey, San Francisco native -- No. 97 in singles (+19), No. 36 in doubles (-3).
   Dmitry Tursunov, Folsom resident -- No. 40 in singles (-1), No. 238 in doubles (-2).
   Dusan Vemic, Capitals (2010-11) -- No. 497 in doubles (-1), No. 1,514 in singles (+5).
   Jimmy Wang, Folsom resident -- No. 288 in singles (-6), No. 552 in doubles (-2).
Women
   Vania King, Capitals (2010-11) -- No. 6 in doubles (no change), No. 76 in singles (-1).
   Raquel Kops-Jones, 2003 NCAA doubles champion from Cal -- No. 37 in doubles (no change), No. 716 in singles (+2).
   Maria Sanchez, Modesto resident -- No. 339 in doubles (career high, +2), No. 687 in singles (career high, +1).
   Yasmin Schnack, Elk Grove resident, Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis (2011) -- No. 214 in doubles (-1), No. 400 in singles (+3). 

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