King cruises in women's doubles at U.S. Open

   Vania King of the Sacramento Capitals and Yaroslava Shvedova are rolling as they defend their U.S. Open women's doubles title.
   The third seeds dispatched Eleni Daniilidou of Greece and Polona Hercog of Slovenia 6-2, 6-2 in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., in the second round for their sixth consecutive victory. 
   King, a Long Beach product living in Boynton Beach, Fla., and Shvedova, from Kazakhstan, won the women's doubles title in Cincinnati two weeks ago. They have not lost more than two games in a set in this year's U.S. Open and next face American wild cards Jessica Pegula, 17, and Taylor Townsend, 15.
   Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena Williams, was quoted in the New York Times last week as saying Townsend, an African-American left-hander from Stockbridge, Ga., is better than his daughters were at the same age. Pegula's father, Terrence, owns the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL.
   King, meanwhile, lost in the first round of mixed doubles with Rohan Bopanna of India. The fifth seeds fell to Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic and Philipp Petzschner of Germany 7-6 (1), 4-6, 10-7 tiebreak.
   King's teammate on the Capitals, Mark Knowles of the Bahamas,  advanced in men's doubles and mixed doubles.
   Knowles and Belgium's Xavier Malisse, seeded 15th in men's doubles, advanced to the third round with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Martin Emmrich of Germany and Andreas Siljestrom of Sweden.
   The unseeded team of Knowles and Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia beat wild cards Christina Fusano, a Sacramento native and former NCAA women's doubles champion from Cal, and ex-Stanford All-American David Martin 6-2, 7-5 in the first round of mixed doubles.
   Raquel Kops-Jones, who won the 2003 NCAA women's doubles title with Fusano, and fellow American Rajeev Ram lost in the second round of mixed doubles to Czechs Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak 7-5, 7-5.
   Wild cards Hilary Barte and Mallory Burdette, the reigning NCAA women's doubles champions from Stanford, fell to unseeded Andreja Klepac of Slovenia and Anna Tatishvili of Georgia 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.     
  

King scores upset, will face Wozniacki

   Vania King aced one test. Now comes a much bigger one.
   The Sacramento Capital reached the third round of the U.S. Open, equaling her best singles result there, by hammering 29th-seeded Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia 6-2, 6-0 Thursday in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   King's reward is a matchup with top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark.
   “I’m American, so I know I’ll get some support out there,” King told reporters. “But she’s No. 1 in the
world, so she will, too.”
   Wozniacki is 2-0 against King, having won 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 (after trailing 4-1 in the third set) last year at Indian Wells and 6-1, 6-0 at the Australian Open in January.
   King, however, has something Wozniacki does not -- a Grand Slam title. King actually has two of them, the 2010 Wimbledon and U.S. Open women's doubles crowns with Yaroslava Shvedova.
   Wozniacki, much maligned for ascending to No. 1 without having won a Slam, was the singles runner-up to Kim Clijsters in the U.S. Open two years ago.
   King led a parade of victorious players with Northern California ties in the U.S. Open.
   Hilary Barte and Mallory Burdette, the NCAA women's doubles champions from Stanford, defeated Alexa Glatch and Jamie Hampton 6-4, 6-4 in a matchup of American wild cards in the first round of women's doubles.
   In mixed doubles, top-seeded Bob Bryan (Stanford) and Liezel Huber, unseeded Scott Lipsky (Stanford) and Lisa Raymond, and unseeded Raquel Kops-Jones (Cal) and Rajeev Ram advanced to the second round.
   The only player with Northern California connections to lose Thursday was Stanford sophomore Nicole Gibbs. She and Lauren Davis, the girls 18 doubles champions in the USTA National Championships last month,  fell to German veterans Julia Goerges and Andrea Petkovic 6-4, 6-1.
   Fusano to coach at UC Davis -- Professional doubles specialist Christina Fusano, a Sacramento native who lives in nearby Plymouth, will become an assistant coach for the UC Davis women's tennis team, head coach Bill Maze announced.
   Fusano, 30, played women's doubles in the U.S. Open twice and at Wimbledon once. Her best year was 2008, when she reached the second round of Wimbledon as a qualifier with Angela Haynes and climbed to a career-high No. 84 in doubles. Fusano won 13 career doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.
  Fusano, a graduate of Ponderosa High School in Shingle Springs near Sacramento and 2003 NCAA doubles champion from Cal with Kops-Jones, teamed with former Stanford All-American David Martin to win the inaugural U.S. Open National Playoffs in mixed doubles last week.
   The title gave Fusano and Martin a wild card into the mixed doubles main draw at the U.S. Open. They are scheduled to face Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas today in the first round. Fusano and Knowles were teammates on the Capitals for five matches in July.
  UC Davis will open its fall season Sept. 30 at, ironically, the Cal Invitational.

Bryans stunned in first round of U.S. Open

   For the first time in 10 years, Bob and Mike Bryan lost in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament.
   The top seeds and defending champions fell to 6-foot-10 Ivo Karlovic of Croatia and Frank Moser of Germany 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 Wednesday at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   The Bryan twins, the 1998 NCAA men's doubles champions as Stanford sophomores, had won the Australian Open and Wimbledon and reached the semifinals of the French Open this year. They hadn't lost in the opening round of a Grand Slam since the 2001 Australian Open.
   Meanwhile, neither Karlovic nor Moser had reached the second round of a Grand Slam in men's doubles.
   Also falling in the first round of men's doubles were 16th-seeded Scott Lipsky of Huntington Beach and Rajeev Ram of Carmel, Ind., and Folsom resident Dmitry Tursunov and Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov.
   Lipsky, another former Stanford All-American, and Ram, the singles runner-up in the 2006 Sacramento Challenger, lost to Germans Michael Kohlmann and Alexander Waske 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5). Lipsky, who grew up in Merrick, N.Y., near the site of the tournament, fell to 0-5 in U.S. Open men's doubles.
   Dimitrov and Tursunov lost to eighth-seeded Eric Butorac of Rochester, Minn., and Jean-Julien Rojer of Netherlands Antilles 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-0. Butorac played for the Sacramento Capitals in 2008. 
   Third-seeded Vania King, a current member of the Capitals who grew up in Long Beach, and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan opened the defense of their women's doubles title with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Czechs Petra Cetkovska and Renata Voracova.    
   Raquel Kops-Jones, the 2003 NCAA women's doubles champion from Cal, and Abigail Spears of Valley Center (north of San Diego) fell to fourth-seeded Liezel Huber of Houston and Lisa Raymond of Wayne, Pa., 6-2, 6-2.

Niland's dream match ends quickly

   Even though he lost, Conor Niland fulfilled a dream Tuesday.
   After toiling in tennis' minor leagues for years, the former Cal All-American faced world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open.
   Trailing 6-0, 5-1 in the biggest tennis stadium in the world with a capacity of 22,547, Niland retired with food poisoning after 44 minutes in the first round at Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   “To get to play Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 player in the world, is amazing,” the 29-year-old Irishman, who won three qualifying matches to enter the main draw, was quoted as saying on the ATP World Tour Web site before the match. “It was always my goal to get to these type of situations.
   "Being an Irish player, we did not have that many guys on tour, and it was always kind of exciting to think that maybe I could be the guy to get here. It took me a long time to do it. Had it not been for the support of my family, I am not sure if I would have continued. They always told me to back myself and keep believing.”
   Niland, who beat Roger Federer when they were 13 and was named the Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year in 2006, is ranked No. 197 in the world in singles after reaching a career-high of No. 129 last December. He has singles records of 117-72 on the ITF Futures circuit, 68-77 on the ATP Challenger Tour, 9-10 on the ATP World Tour and 0-2 in Grand Slam tournaments.
   “Six months is a long time on the tennis tour,” said Niland, who also lost in the first round at Wimbledon in June as a qualifier. “And you can always turn your career around in that period of time. You can go from losing matches in Futures to winning a few in Challengers to qualifying for ATP 250s. And then you are in qualies of a Slam with the chance to play against great players.
   "Nobody knows this better than me. For all those guys playing Challengers this week, keep believing and keep trying for the biggest stages in tennis.”
  Also in men's singles at the U.S. Open, Folsom resident Dmitry Tursunov lost to Steve Darcis of Belgium for the second consecutive week. Tursunov fell 6-7 (4), 4-6, 7-5, 6-1, 7-6 (0) after succumbing 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the second round at Winston-Salem, N.C.
   In women's singles, Vania King of the Sacramento Capitals in World TeamTennis dispatched Greta Arn of Hungary 6-1, 6-4. King, who had won only one singles match in five tournaments since the French Open, will meet 29th-seeded Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia in the second round.
   King's teammate on the Capitals, Mark Knowles of the Bahamas, ended a four-match losing streak in doubles. Knowles and Belgium's Xavier Malisse, seeded 15th, defeated wild cards Jack Sock and Jack Withrow, both from Nebraska, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1.
   Knowles, who will turn 40 Sunday, and Malisse, a comparative youngster at 31, won the Los Angeles title last month in their first tournament together. Sock and Withrow captured the boys 18 doubles title in the USTA National Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich., this month to earn an automatic berth in the U.S. Open.
   Another American wild-card team, Stanford senior Bradley Klahn and former Cardinal All-American David Martin, lost to seventh-seeded Robert Lindstedt of Sweden and Horia Tecau of Romania 6-4, 6-4. Lindstedt and Tecau have lost in the Wimbledon final for the past two years.

   New rankings -- Following are this week's world rankings of players with Northern California ties (change from last week in parentheses):  

Men

   Bob Bryan, 1998 NCAA doubles champion from Stanford -- No. 1 in doubles (no change), no singles ranking.
   Mike Bryan, 1998 NCAA doubles champion from Stanford -- No. 1 in doubles (no change), no singles ranking.
   Scott Lipsky, 2002 NCAA doubles runner-up from Stanford -- No. 28 in doubles (no change), no singles ranking.
   Mark Knowles, Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis (2001-07, 2009-11) -- No. 40 in doubles (-2), no singles ranking.
   Dmitry Tursunov, Folsom resident -- No. 43 in singles (+1), No. 96 in doubles (-2).
   David Martin, 2002 NCAA doubles runner-up from Stanford -- No. 105 in doubles (-2), No. 701 in singles (no change).
   John Paul Fruttero, Cal All-American in 2001 and 2002 -- No. 152 in doubles (+2), 1,234 in singles (-5).
   Conor Niland, 2006 Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year and two-time All-American at Cal -- No. 197 in singles (+2), no doubles ranking. 
   Jimmy Wang, Folsom resident -- No. 390 in singles (-7), No. 682 in doubles (-5).
   Dusan Vemic, Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis (2010-11) -- No. 503 in doubles (-5), No. 1,508 in singles (-4).
   Kiryl Harbatsiuk, three-time Big Sky Conference MVP (2009-11) at Sacramento State -- No. 767 in singles (-20), No. 1,225 in doubles (-2).

Women

   Vania King, Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis (2010-11) -- No. 7 in doubles (no change), No. 103 in singles (+2).
   Raquel Kops-Jones, 2003 NCAA doubles champion from Cal -- No. 53 in doubles (-2), no singles ranking.
   Christina Fusano, Sacramento native, Plymouth resident, 2003 NCAA doubles champion from Cal -- No. 174 in doubles (no change), no singles ranking.
   Yasmin Schnack, Elk Grove resident, Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis (2011) -- No. 220 in doubles (-1), No. 380 in singles (-2).

Fusano earns U.S. Open mixed doubles berth

   Christina Fusano is on her way to the U.S. Open.
   The Sacramento native teamed with David Martin of Tulsa, Okla., to beat Yasmin Schnack of Elk Grove and Eric Roberson of Sacramento 2-6, 6-1, 10-5 tiebreak Saturday in the U.S. Open National Playoffs mixed doubles final at New Haven, Conn.
   The victory gave Fusano and Martin a wild card into the mixed doubles main draw of the U.S. Open. The year's final Grand Slam tournament is scheduled to begin Monday, with mixed doubles starting Wednesday.
   Fusano and Martin, who emerged from a field of almost 200 teams in the inaugural U.S. Open National Playoffs in mixed doubles, have several similarities.
   Both are 30. Both are former All-Americans at Bay Area colleges, Fusano at Cal and Martin at Stanford. Both have starred in doubles on the USTA Pro Circuit, Martin winning 20 titles and Fusano 11.
   And both reached their career-high world rankings in doubles in 2008, Martin at No. 38 and Fusano at No. 84. Currently, Martin is No. 103 and Fusano No. 174.
   However, Fusano is right-handed and Martin left-handed, which only adds to their effectiveness as a doubles team.
   Martin has competed in men's doubles in all Grand Slam tournaments, reaching the round of 16 at Wimbledon in 2007 as a qualifier with former Stanford teammate Scott Lipsky, but never in mixed doubles. Fusano has played women's doubles in two Grand Slam tournaments, losing in the first round of the U.S. Open in 2003 and 2008.
   Fusano and Schnack, meanwhile, are part-time doubles partners on the USTA Pro Circuit. They won the $25,000 USTA Challenger of Redding last September in Schnack's professional debut.
     

Sacramento-area residents eye U.S. Open berth

   Today's mixed doubles final in the U.S. Open National Playoffs will have a strong Sacramento-area flavor.
   Top-seeded Christina Fusano, a Sacramento native who lives in nearby Plymouth, and David Martin, a former Stanford All-American from Tulsa, Okla., will play unseeded Yasmin Schnack of Elk Grove and Eric Roberson of Sacramento in New Haven, Conn., for a berth in the mixed doubles main draw of the U.S. Open.
   Fusano and Martin demolished Brook Connelly of Yukon, Okla., and Dave Mullins of Norman, Okla., 6-1, 6-1 in Friday's semifinals, and Schnack and Roberson eliminated Amanda Rodgers of Bradenton, Fla., and Ellis Ferreira of South Africa 6-2, 7-6 (3).
   Fusano, a 30-year-old veteran and former NCAA doubles champion from Cal, and Schnack, a 23-year-old ex-UCLA star, are part-time doubles partners on the USTA Pro Circuit. They won the title in the $25,000 USTA Challenger of Redding last September.
    U.S. Open singles qualifying -- Stanford senior Bradley Klahn, last year's NCAA men's singles champion, lost to Canadian veteran Frank Dancevic 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the final round of qualifying at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   ATP World Tour doubles -- Former Stanford All-American Scott Lipsky of Huntington Beach and Colin Fleming of Great Britain lost to Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram of Israel 6-4, 6-4 in the doubles semifinals of the $553,125 Winston-Salem (N.C.) Open.
   Lipsky and Martin reached the NCAA doubles final in 2002, losing to Andrew Colombo and Mark Kovacs of Auburn. Erlich and Ram won the 2008 Australian Open for their only career Grand Slam men's doubles title.  

Tursunov to meet familiar face in U.S. Open

   Dmitry Tursunov won't have to wait long for a chance at revenge.
   The Folsom resident, ranked 44th in the world, drew Belgium's Steve Darcis, ranked No. 102, on Thursday in the U.S. Open. Tursunov lost to Darcis 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 Tuesday in the second round of the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Open to even their career head-to-head record at 1-1.
   The winner of the Tursunov-Darcis match in the U.S. Open, which begins Monday in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., could play 24th-seeded Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina in the second round. Tursunov is 0-2 lifetime against Chela.
   Tursunov has lost in the first round of the last two U.S. Opens. That he even played in them was a considerable achievement, considering that he underwent three operations on his left ankle or foot between April 2009 and February 2010.
   In fact, when Tursunov reached the second round at Wimbledon in June, he ended a streak of nine consecutive first-round singles losses in Grand Slam tournaments dating to the 2009 Australian Open. He had been on a string of three straight third-round showings.
  Tursunov, 28, will be playing in his ninth consecutive U.S. Open since debuting in 2003. His best results are third-round appearances in 2003, 2006 and 2008.
   Meanwhile, Vania King of the Sacramento Capitals will face Greta Arn of Hungary in the U.S. Open. The 5-foot-5 King, ranked No. 105 in singles, and the 5-11 Arn, ranked No. 62, have never met.
   The winner could play 29th-seeded Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia in the second round, and top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki looms in the third round. King is 0-1 against Gajdosova and 0-2 vs. Wozniacki.
   King, 22, will be playing in her seventh consecutive U.S. Open since debuting in 2005. Her best showing in singles was the third round in 2009. She will defend her doubles title with Yaroslava Shvedova.
   U.S. Open qualifying -- Stanford senior Bradley Klahn, last year's NCAA singles champion, defeated 14th-seeded Matthew Ebden of Australia 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3 in the second round of qualifying at the U.S. Open.
   Klahn will meet unseeded Canadian veteran Frank Dancevic, ranked No. 183 after reaching a career-high No. 65 in 2007, today for a berth in the main draw.
   U.S. Open mixed doubles playoffs -- Sacramento-area players Christina Fusano, seeded first with former Stanford All-American David Martin of Tulsa, Okla., and Yasmin Schnack, unseeded with Sacramento's Eric Roberson, advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Open National Playoffs in mixed doubles at New Haven, Conn.
   Fusano and Martin coasted to a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Marie-Eve Pelletier of Canada and Aleksander Vlaski of Serbia, while Schnack and Roberson eked out a 6-4, 6-7 (6), 12-10 tiebreak win over Imke Reimers of Minneapolis and Erik Donley of Duluth, Minn.
   The winner of the tournament will earn a wild card in the mixed doubles main draw of the U.S. Open.