Today’s Men’s News (12/30)

Written by: Staff on 30th December 2012

Today's Men's News (12/30)

epa03412132 Fernando Verdasco of Spain returns the ball to Donald Young of the USA during their second round match at the ATP PTT Thailand Open tennis tournament in Bangkok, Thailand, 27 September 2012. EPA/RUNGROJ YONGRIT |

Brisbane

Doubles-First Round: (1) Butorac/Hanley def. (WC) Guccione/Hewitt 6-4 7-6(7-0)

An interesting contest, this, since it involves three potential members of Australia’s Davis Cup team. And it was the likely odd man out who won….

Doubles-First Round: Dimitrov/Nishikori def. (4) Elgin/Istomin 7-6(7-5) 4-6 10-7 (Match TB)

This is a fairly weak doubles draw, so this may not be our last surprise.

Hopman Cup

Kevin Anderson seems to be on an upset kick. Too bad it isn’t doing him the least bit of good. He beat John Isner in two tiebreaks. Unfortunately for South Africa, Venus Williams had already beaten Chanelle Scheepers 4-6 6-2 6-3, and the Americans then teamed up to beat Scheepers and Anderson 6-3 6-2. So Anderson is 2-0 in singles but finds his team already out of it.

Fernando Verdasco is lucky to have Anabel Medina Garrigues around. Having lost to Anderson the day before, on Sunday he suffered a more understandable 7-5 6-3 loss to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. But Medina Garrigues beat France’s Mathilde Johansson 6-3 6-2, and the Spanish won the mixed 6-3 6-3. So even with Verdasco reduced to the status of mixed doubles specialist, Spain has a 2-0 record and looks good for the final.

In off-court news, Tatjana Malek takes the place of injured Andrea Petkovic for Germany.