Saturday, July 8, 2017

Querrey upsets Tsonga to reach Wimbledon last 16

   Sam Querrey needed only one game today to pull off a big upset in the third round at Wimbledon for the second consecutive year.
   The 24th-seeded Querrey broke 12th-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's serve to win 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-5 in the completion of a match that had been suspended by darkness on Friday night.
   Querrey, a 29-year-old San Francisco native, avenged a marathon loss to Tsonga, a two-time Wimbledon semifinalist, three years ago at the All England Club and improved his career record against the 32-year-old Frenchman to 2-4. Tsonga won 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (4), 6-3, 14-12 in the second round at Wimbledon in 2014.
   Querrey stunned Novak Djokovic in the third round at Wimbledon last year en route to the quarterfinals. Djokovic was ranked No. 1 at the time and had won the past two Wimbledon titles.
   Another San Francisco native, 18-year-old CiCi Bellis, reached the round of 16 in women's doubles. But the Grand Slam drought of former Stanford stars Bob and Mike Bryan continued in men's doubles.
   Querrey now lives in Santa Monica in the Los Angeles area, and Bellis is based in Orlando, Fla.
   Querrey, ranked No. 28, will try to return to the quarterfinals when he meets Kevin Anderson, unseeded at No. 42, on Monday. The winner will play either top seed and defending champion Andy Murray or Benoit Paire of France.
   Anderson, a 31-year-old South African and former NCAA doubles champion at Illinois, eliminated qualifier Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium 7-6 (3), 6-4, 7-6 (3) on Friday. Bemelmans, a 29-year-old left-hander, won the $25,000 Burlingame (Calif.) Futures title last October.
   Querrey and Anderson have much in common and know each other well on the court. Both:
   --Are tall. Anderson is 6-foot-8 (2.03 meters), and Querrey is 6-foot-6 (1.98 meters).
   --Are former top-20 players who have fought back from injuries. Their career highs are No. 10 (Anderson in 2015) and No. 17 (Querrey in 2011).
   --Have reached one Grand Slam quarterfinal. Anderson advanced to the quarters in the 2015 U.S. Open, ending Murray's streak of reaching at least the last eight in 18 straight Slams.
   --Played part-time for the now-defunct Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis, Querrey in 2012 and 2013 and Anderson in 2012.
   Querrey leads the head-to-head series 8-5, but Anderson has won four of the past six matches. Their last meeting came more than two years ago, a 6-7 (5), 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory by Anderson in the second round at Miami in 2015.
   The players have met once on grass, a 7-5, 6-3 win by Querrey in the second round at Queen's Club in London in 2009. Their first meeting occurred 10 years ago in the opening round of the Sacramento Challenger as Querrey prevailed 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
   In women's doubles today, Bellis and Marketa Vondrousova, an 18-year-old Czech, defeated Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine and Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia 6-2, 6-4.
   Bellis and Vondrousova, the girls doubles runners-up in the 2014 French Open, will play Ukrainians Lyudmyla Kichenok and Lesia Tsurenko on Monday.
   Kichenok and Tsurenko received a walkover against top-seeded Bethanie Mattek-Sands of Phoenix and Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic following Mattek-Sands' gruesome knee injury in singles.
   The fifth-seeded Bryan twins, 39, lost to Marcin Matkowski of Poland and Max Mirnyi, 40, of Belarus 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 in the second round. It was the Bryans' second consecutive loss in the second round of a Slam after their runner-up finish in the Australian Open. They won the last of their record 16 major men's doubles titles in the 2014 U.S. Open.

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