French Open Day 5 highlights: Controversy erupts

   Five highlights from Day 5 of the French Open:

   1. Alize Cornet of France overcame leg cramps to defeat Tatjana Maria of Germany 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-4 in the second round, and each player accused the other of poor sportsmanship afterward.

   Cornet, the 2007 French Open junior girls champion who stunned Serena Williams in the third round at Wimbledon two years ago, repeatedly received treatment during changeovers in the third set.
   After winning, Cornet fell on her back in celebration. Maria, instead of waiting at the net, shook hands with the chair umpire and put her racket in her back before walking to the net near the chair to shake hands with Cornet. Maria then scolded Cornet while wagging a finger at her as the partisan crowd booed.

   "It's not fair play, what she did ... she had cramps," said the 28-year-old Maria, one of the few mothers on the WTA tour. "She takes physio for her left leg because her right leg was cramping."
   Said Cornet, 26: "She told me I was unfair. But it is she who was unfair, asking the umpire to give me time warnings."
   Cornet and Maria are scheduled to meet again in the second round of women's doubles on Friday.
   2. Top-seeded Novak Djokovic and fourth-seeded Rafael Nadal advanced in straight sets. Nadal has lost only nine games in two matches (six sets).
   Djokovic is attempting to become the eighth man to achieve a career Grand Slam in singles. Nadal is trying to become the first player in the Open era, which began in 1968, to win 10 singles titles in a Grand Slam tournament.
   3. Sixth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, bidding to become the first Frenchman to win Roland Garros since Yannick Noah 33 years ago, avoided elimination with a 6-7 (6), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus.
   Tsonga, 31, and Baghdatis, who will turn 31 on June 17, were born exactly two months apart. Also, each has lost in the Australian Open in his only Grand Slam final. Tsonga fell to Djokovic in 2008 and Baghdatis to Roger Federer in 2006.
   The primary difference between the two is size: Tsonga is 6-foot-2 (1.88 meters) and 200 pounds (91 kilograms), and Baghdatis is 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters) and 181 pounds (82 kilograms).
   Baghdatis won the 2014 Comerica Bank Challenger in Aptos, Calif.

Naomi Osaka, 18, of Japan has reached the third round
of the French Open. 2014 photo by Paul Bauman

   4. No. 1 seed Serena Williams and No. 9 Venus Williams advanced with 6-2, 6-1 victories. Serena overwhelmed Teliana Pereira of Brazil, and Venus routed 20-year-old qualifier Louisa Chirico in an all-American matchup.
   5. Four teenagers have reached the third round: 18-year-old Naomi Osaka of Japan and 19-year-old Daria Kasatkina of Russia on the women's side, and 19-year-olds Borna Coric of Croatia and Alexander Zverev of Germany in the men's draw.

   In Osaka's main-draw debut on the WTA tour at 16, she stunned 2011 U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur 4-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5 in the first round of the 2014 Bank of the West Classic at Stanford. The 5-foot-11 (1.80-meter) Osaka, who has a Haitian father and Japanese mother, survived a match point at 6-7 in the tiebreaker and overcame a 3-5 deficit in the third set.
   Osaka next will meet sixth-seeded Simona Halep, the 2014 runner-up to Maria Sharapova at Roland Garros.

   Northern California results

Men's doubles

First round

   Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan (5), former Stanford All-Americans from the United States, def. Mariusz Fyrstenberg, Poland, and Santiago Gonzalez, Mexico, 6-2, 6-3.

Second round

   Eric Butorac, United States, and Scott Lipsky, former Stanford All-American from the United States, def. Raven Klaasen, South Africa, and Rajeev Ram (8), United States, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2).

Women's doubles

First round

   Sabine Lisicki and Andrea Petkovic, Germany, def. Nicole Gibbs, former Stanford All-American from the United States, and Heather Watson, Great Britain, 6-4, 6-4. 

Mixed doubles

First round

   Andrea Hlavackova, Czech Republic, and Edouard Roger-Vasselin (6), France, def. Anabel Medina-Garrigues, Spain, and Scott Lipsky, former Stanford All-American from the United States, 6-2, 6-2. 

Bellis ousts No. 2 seed, defending champ in Midland

CiCi Bellis, a 16-year-old amateur, defeated a top-100 player
for the third time in her career. 2015 photo by Paul Bauman

   CiCi Bellis achieved one of the biggest wins of her young career today.
   The 16-year-old amateur from Atherton in the San Francisco Bay Area upset No. 2 seed and defending champion Tatjana Maria of Germany 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the $100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic in Midland, Mich.
   Maria, ranked No. 68, is the third top-100 player Bellis has beaten.
   At 15, Bellis knocked off No. 13 Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in the opening round of the 2014 U.S. Open, becoming the youngest player to win a match at Flushing Meadows since Anna Kournikova at 15 in 1996.
   Bellis also defeated No. 32 Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan in the second round at Miami last March before losing to Serena Williams 6-1, 6-1.
   The 28-year-old Maria, who's married with a 2-year-old daughter, was coming off a second-round appearance in the Australian Open and reached the third round at Wimbledon last year.
   But Maria made repeated baseline errors against the 219th-ranked Bellis, who's listed at 5-foot-6 (1.68 meters) and only 110 pounds (50 kilograms), and lost her serve seven of 11 times.
   Not only is Maria one of the few women with a one-handed backhand, she switched from two hands in mid-career.
   Bellis, who ended 2014 as the No. 1 junior in the world, will face the winner of Wednesday's match between 22-year-old wild card Robin Anderson of Matawan, N.J., and another 16-year-old from the Bay Area, qualifier Michaela Gordon of Saratoga.
   Anderson, only 5-foot-3 (1.61 meters), was the runner-up to Adriana Perez of Venezuela in the $25,000 Redding Challenger in 2013 and won the doubles title with countrywoman Lauren Embree.
   Gordon advanced to the Wimbledon girls quarterfinals in 2014 and 2015 and, at 15 years and 1 month old, the quarters of the 2014 Redding Challenger.

Three players in WTA doubles semi celebrate birthday

(Left to right) Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine, Yi-Fan Xu of China and Tatjana
Maria of Germany celebrated their birthday on Saturday. Xu and Saisai Zheng
defeated Bondarenko and Maria in the doubles semifinals of the Bank of the
West Classic at Stanford. Photo by David Gonzales/Bank of the West Classic

   This must be a record.
   Three players in one of the doubles semifinals in the Bank of the West Classic celebrated birthdays on Saturday. And none are twins.
   The Chinese team of Yi-Fan Xu and Saisai Zheng defeated Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine and Tatjana Maria of Germany 6-2, 6-4 at the Taube Family Tennis Complex on the campus of Stanford University.
   Bondarenko turned 29, Maria 28 and Xu 27. Alas, Zheng turned 21 on Feb. 5.
   If Roger Federer of Switzerland and Marinko Matosevic of Australia played mixed doubles with any of the birthday girls, it would be a sweep. Federer turned 34 and Matosevic 30 on Saturday.
   Xu and Zheng will face second-seeded Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain today for the doubles title.
   Medina Garrigues and Parra Santonja outclassed third-seeded Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Alicja Rosolska of Poland 6-3, 6-2.
   Medina Garrigues, 33, last week was named the Co-Female MVP of World TeamTennis as a member of the Sacramento-based California Dream. Sacramento is a two-hour drive northeast of Stanford.