Del Potro and Stosur advance after tough wins
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Former US Open champions Juan Martin del Potro and Samantha Stosur rallied to win their second-round matches against tough French opponents yesterday.
Del Potro beat Nicolas Mahut 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 at the Sydney International, while Stosur saved two match points and eked out a 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7) win over Kristina Mladenovic at the Hobart International.
Stosur lost all three of her singles matches at the Hopman Cup team exhibition event last week .
Thus she is looking for some confidence heading into her home Grand Slam at Melbourne Park, where she has never advanced past the fourth round.
“Any win’s a good win, but when you’ve got to really tough it out and battle through a long match ... you’re probably holding your nerve pretty well,” Stosur said.
The Australian Open begins on Monday.
Earlier, former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova advanced to the semifinals of the women’s event in Sydney with a 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over Lucie Safarova.
Kvitova, the second seeded player, will play Tsvetana Pironkova in the semifinals after the Bulgarian’s 7-6 (2), 6-3 win over Sara Errani.
In a late match, Madison Keys advanced to the semifinals when Bethanie Mattek-Sands retired with a lower back injury while trailing 3-2 in the first set. Mattek-Sands said she still hoped to play in the Australian Open.
In other men’s matches in Sydney, defending champion Bernard Tomic of Australia reached the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia, and Marinko Matosevic defeated third-seeded Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-3, 6-4.
Also, Alexandr Dolgopolov beat second-seeded Jerzy Janowicz of Poland 6-2, 6-2, Denis Istomin defeated No. 7 Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-4 and No. 4 Dmitry Tursunov defeated Lukas Rosol 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
At the ATP’s Heineken Open in Auckland, New Zealand, American wild-card entry Jack Sock pulled off the biggest win of his career when he beat second-seeded Tommy Hass 6-4, 6-4 in the second round.
The 21-year-old Sock is 14 years younger than Haas and his ranking is nearly 90 places lower than the 12th-ranked German. But Sock started strongly and got early breaks in both sets.
Sock will face Roberto Batista Agut in the quarterfinals after the Spaniard beat sixth-seeded Benoit Paire of France 6-3, 6-4.
David Ferrer, the No. 1-seeded player and defending champion, beat Donald Young of the United States 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-1.
The Spaniard is seeking his fifth Auckland singles title.
Other winners included John Isner and Steve Johnson, who beat Marcos Baghdatis 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4.
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