Roundup: Brown, Bellis, Fed Cup, Brits, Cal women

Richard Gasquet of France practices his sensational one-handed
backhand at Indian Wells in 2014. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Saturday's semifinal in Montpellier, France, was a microcosm of Dustin Brown's career.
   Up one minute, down the next.
   Richard Gasquet, the top seed and defending champion, pulled off perhaps the comeback of the year to defeat Brown 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the Open Sud de France.
   Brown, a 31-year-old German qualifier playing in his first ATP World Tour semifinal, bolted to a 6-1, 3-0 lead in 35 minutes.
   The 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) Brown had 27 winners at that stage and finished with 17 aces.
   Last year, Brown defeated former world No. 1 Rafael Nadal in the second round at Wimbledon on Centre Court and lost to then-No. 419 Sekou Bangoura in straight sets in the first round of the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger.
   Two weeks after the Tiburon loss, Brown advanced to the final of the $50,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger. He lost to U.S. sensation Taylor Fritz, who was 17 years old at the time.
   Gasquet, 29, became the eighth active player to reach 25 tour-level finals. He will play 34-year-old countryman Paul-Henri Mathieu, who held off 18-year-old Alexander Zverev, a 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) German, 7-6 (11), 7-5.
   Women's Challenger in Midland, Mich. -- CiCi Bellis, a 16-year-old amateur from Atherton in the San Francisco Bay Area, reached her biggest doubles final.
   Wild cards Bellis and Ingrid Neel, 17, of Rochester, Minn., edged third-seeded Nicole Gibbs of Marina del Rey and Taylor Townsend of Atlanta 3-6, 6-3 [10-6] in the $100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic.
   Gibbs won the 2012 NCAA doubles crown with Stanford teammate Mallory Burdette.
   Bellis and Neel, who routed top-seeded Asia Muhammad and Maria Sanchez in the quarterfinals, will face second-seeded Naomi Broady of Great Britain and Shelby Rogers of Charleston, S.C.
   Broady, 6-foot-2 (1.88 meters), and Rogers crushed Americans Lauren Davis and Grace Min 6-0, 6-0 in 38 minutes.
   Fed Cup in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii -- The United States coasted to a 2-0 lead over Poland in World Group II.
   Sloane Stephens defeated Magda Linette 6-2, 6-4, and Venus Williams beat Paula Kania 7-5, 6-2.
   Williams, 35, has won the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford twice (2000 and 2002) and reached the final seven times.
   Kania and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic advanced to the doubles final at Stanford in 2014, losing to Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro.
   Williams will try to clinch the best-of-five-match series for the United States in today's first match against Linette.
   Top-ranked Serena Williams of the United States and No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland skipped this weekend's competition.
   The winner will advance to the World Group playoffs in April for a chance to compete for the Fed Cup title in 2017.
   Men's Challenger in Dallas -- In an all-British matchup, second-seeded Kyle Edmund, 21, outclassed unseeded Daniel Evans 6-3, 6-2 to win the $100,000 RBC Tennis Championships.
   Both players helped Great Britain win its first Davis Cup championship in 79  years in 2015.
   Edmund reached the semifinals of the $100,000 Aptos (Calif.) Challenger last August before losing to eventual champion John Millman.
   Evans, only 5-foot-9 (1.75 meters), held a championship point before losing to former Stanford All-American Bradley Klahn in the 2013 Aptos final.
   Klahn, a 25-year-old left-hander, hopes to return to competition soon after undergoing surgery for a herniated disc for the second time.
   ITA Women's Team Indoors in Madison, Wis. -- No. 6 Cal defeated No. 7 Virginia 4-1 to reach the semifinals of the ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championship.
   The Bears (4-0) will meet No. 16 Ohio State, which stunned No. 1 and reigning NCAA champion Vanderbilt 4-3.

Roundup: Brown, Bellis, Date-Krumm, Cal women

Dustin Brown, volleying in the $50,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger
last October, reached an ATP World Tour semifinal for the first time.
Photo by Paul Bauman

   Dustin Brown is undefeated against Rafael Nadal.
   But until Friday, the 31-year-old German had never reached the semifinals on the ATP World Tour.
   Brown finally broke through -- as a qualifier, no less -- with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium in the Open Sud de France in Montpellier.
   Brown, 6-foot-5 (1.96 meters) and only 172 pounds (78 kilograms), had been 0-8 in tour-level quarterfinals.
   "I'm just very happy to finally make it to a semifinal after so many tries," Brown, who stunned Nadal in the second round on Centre Court at Wimbledon last year to improve to 2-0 against the 14-time Grand Slam singles champion (tied for second all-time). "I've played lots of times against Ruben and lost a tight one last time. Basically, I tried to play aggressively like the past couple of days, and I'm happy it worked out."
   Brown finished as the runner-up to Taylor Fritz of Rancho Santa Fe in the San Diego area in the $50,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger last October. Fritz was 17 at the time.
   Bemelmans, a 28-year-old left-hander, won the doubles title in the 2014 Aptos Challenger with Laurynas Grigelis of Lithuania.
   The 133rd-ranked Brown, who has a Jamaican father and wears dreadlocks down to his waist, will meet top-seeded and 10th-ranked Richard Gasquet of France for the first time.
   Gasquet, the defending champion who also won the title in 2013, beat Marcos Baghdatis, the 2014 Aptos singles champion, 6-4, 6-4.
   In the other semifnal, 18-year-old Alexander Zverev of Germany will face 34-year-old Paul-Henri Mathieu of France.
   Zverev, 6-foot-6 (1.98 meters), stunned second-seeded Marin Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, in the second round.
   Mathieu defeated John Millman, a 26-year-old Australian playing in his first ATP quarterfinal, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-3.
   Last August, Millman became the first No. 1 seed in the 28-year history of the Aptos Challenger to win the title.
   Women's Challenger in Midland, Mich. -- Wild cards CiCi Bellis, 16, of Atherton in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ingrid Neel, 17, of Rochester, Minn., whipped top-seeded Asia Muhammad and Maria Sanchez, a 26-year-old Modesto product, 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the $100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic.

   Muhammad and Sanchez won last week's $50,000 Maui Challenger.

Kimiko Date-Krumm, playing in the Stockton
Challenger last summer, announced she will
have knee surgery. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Bellis ousted No. 2 singles seed and defending champion Tatjana Maria of Germany in the first round before losing to U.S. wild card Robin Anderson.

   Bellis and Neel will play third-seeded Nicole Gibbs of Marina del Rey in the Los Angeles region and Taylor Townsend of Atlanta.
   Gibbs won the 2012 NCAA doubles title with Stanford teammate Mallory Burdette.

   Date-Krumm surgery -- Kimiko Date-Krumm announced she will undergo left knee surgery, jeopardizing her career.
   After losing in the first round of qualifying in last month's Australian Open, the 45-year-old Japanese marvel had an MRI that revealed a torn meniscus.
   Date-Krumm climbed to a career-high No. 4 in 1995. Last summer, she reached the semifinals of the $50,000 Stockton Challenger, quarterfinals of the $50,000 Sacramento Challenger and, as a qualifier, second round of the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford.
   Date-Krumm overcame a huge deficit to stun then-No. 24 Sabine Lisicki of Germany in the first round at Stanford. One year earlier there, Lisicki set a record that still stands with a 131.0-mph (201.8-kph) serve.
   ITA Women's Team Indoors in Madison, Wis. -- Cal, seeded fourth and ranked sixth, blitzed host Wisconsin 4-0 in the opening round of 16 in the ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championship.
   The Bears (3-0) will play Virginia (4-1), unseeded and ranked seventh, in today's quarterfinals.

Brown stuns Simon, Millman advances in Montpellier

Dustin Brown, serving in the final of the
$50,000 Fairfield Challenger last October,
upset 15th-ranked Gilles Simon on the
ATP World Tour. Photo by Paul Bauman

  Two players who starred in Northern California Challengers last year recorded big victories on Thursday in the second round of the Open Sud de France in Montpellier on the elite ATP World Tour.
   Dustin Brown, a 31-year-old German qualifier, surprised third-seeded and 15th-ranked Gilles Simon of France 6-4, 6-4.
   Meanwhile, John Millman of Australia reached his first ATP quarterfinal with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over qualifier Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France.
   Brown was the runner-up to U.S. sensation Taylor Fritz in the $50,000 Fairfield Challenger last October. Fritz was 17 at the time.

   Last August, Millman became the first No. 1 seed in the 28-year history of the Aptos Challenger to win the title.

   The mercurial Brown, who has a Jamaican father and wears dreadlocks down to his waist, achieved his biggest victory since defeating Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon for the second time last June.

   Simon extended top-ranked and eventual champion Novak Djokovic to five sets in the fourth round of last month's Australian Open.

   Roger-Vasselin had ousted fifth-seeded Gael Monfils of France 6-4, 7-6 (5) in the first round. Monfils won the inaugural title in 2010 and in 2014.

   Brown, ranked No. 133, will face No. 107 Ruben Bemelmans, a Belgian left-hander who advanced to his first ATP quarterfinal since losing to Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic at Vienna in October 2013.
   Wild cards Bemelmans and Laurynas Grigelis of Lithuania won the Aptos doubles title in 2014.
   Millman, 26, will play 34-year-old Paul-Henri Mathieu, who upset fourth-seeded Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-3 in an all-French matchup. Mathieu is ranked No. 93 but climbed as high as No. 12 in 2008.

   Win or lose, the 78th-ranked Millman will crack the top 70 in the world for the first time on Monday.

   All seeds have been eliminated in the bottom half of the draw, where Millman is situated.