Tennis bits: Unlikely Rajeev Ram wins ATP Newport; Fognini to kick off ATP Umag

ATP Newport

American Rajeev Ram won his second ATP Tour title at the same place where he captured his first, defeating Croatian Ivo Karlovic to win the ATP Hall of Fame Championshipsin Newport, Rhode Island on Sunday.

Ram outlasted second seed Karlovic 7-6 (7/5), 5-7, 7-6 (7/2) to take the title six years after winning his only prior ATP crown on the same Newport grass by beating countryman Sam Querrey in the final.

“To say that I felt like I’d be the winner at the end of the week .... I had no idea,” said Ram, who will move into the top 100 of the ATP rankings on Monday. “The first win was more elation, this one is more satisfaction just because I did it again.”

Ram will jump from 161st into the top 90 after taking the top prize of $84,250 (Dh309,462). He joins John Isner and Bryan Shelton as the only Americans to win multiple Newport crowns.

Ram, 31, became the second ATP champion this season to have done so after saving a match point in the tournament, the other being Denis Istomin at Nottingham.

Ram saved a match point in defeating top seed Isner in the opening round and saved two more in ousting French fifth seed Adrian Mannarino in the quarter-finals.

For Karlovic, it was another heartbreaker at Newport after dropping last year’s Hall of Fame final to Australian Lleyton Hewitt.

Karlovic, 36, settled for his eighth ATP runner-up showing after having earlier this year collected his sixth title, that coming at Delray Beach.

WTA Bucharest

Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova won her second career title on Sunday when she defeated top-seeded Italian Sara Errani 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 in the Bucharest Open final.

Schmiedlova, ranked at 60 in the world, was beaten by former French Open runner-up Errani in the Rio final earlier this year.

But the 20-year-old gained revenge on Sunday, adding the Romanian title to her maiden career trophy from Katowice in Poland in April.

WTA Bastad

Sweden’s Johanna Larsson captured her first WTA title with a 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) win over defending champion Mona Barthel in the Swedish Open on Sunday.

Fourth-seeded Barthel, from Germany, had beaten Larsson in straight sets in all three of their previous meetings, but this time the seventh seed made the most of home crowd support to take victory.

The tournament had boasted world No 1 Serena Williams as its top seed but the American withdrew after her opening-round win with an elbow injury.

ATP Umag

World No 32 firebrand Fabio Fognini will kick-start the Croatia Open on Monday with an intriguing first-round match against 22-year-old world No 44 Jiri Vesely.

Italian Fognini, known for his on-court flare-ups, typically enjoys the clay surface. In what's been a muted season for the 32-year-old, his final run on the clay of Rio de Janeiro in February – which included a semi-final victory over Rafael Nadal – remains the highlight. Fognini also reached the quarter-finals on Barcelona clay.

The Umag tournament will also see British No 2 Aljaz Bedene square off with Mate Delic on its first day.

Gael Monfils, Roberto Bautista-Agut, Andreas Seppi and Dominic Thiem are the top four seeds, all given automatic entry into the second round.

ATP Bogota

The Claro Open Colombia will begin on Monday with a lone first-round match between world No 152 Japanese Yuichi Sugita and world No 293 Nicolas Barrientos.

The tournament in the Colombian capital sees Ivo Karlovic as its top seed with young Australia rising star and 2014 winner Bernard Tomic the second seed.

ATP Bastad

The men’s Swedish Open begins Monday with two home hopefuls involved in first-round action.

Markus Eriksson will be given the task of 62nd-ranked Frenchman Benoit Paire while his Swede compatriot Christian Lindell must overcome No 88 Joao Souza.

The tournament is headlined by Belgian David Goffin, fresh off a trip to the Wimbledon last 16, and second seeded Spanish veteran Tommy Robredo.

Also of interest will be Ernests Gulbis, mired in a miserable slump this year, as well as Swedish teenager Elias Ymer and rising German teenager Alexander Zverev.

WTA Bad Gastein

The Gastein Ladies tournament starts on Monday in Austria with 19-year-old Katerina Siniakova up against 20-year-old Danka Kovinic.

Siniakova and Kovinic are two of the game’s more interesting young talents, with the Czech Siniakova owning singles wins this year over the likes of Andrea Petkovic, Kristina Mladenovic and Barbora Strycova. She has risen to No 68 in the world rankings.

Montenegrin Kovinic meanwhile had a notable run on the clay of Charleston, US in April, reaching the quarter-finals with wins over Jelena Jankovic and Belinda Bencic, among others.

Bad Gastein will also see Denisa Allertova and Carina Witthoft duel on Monday, as well as Anna-Lena Friedsam and Klara Koukalova.

Sara Errani and Sam Stosur are the tournament’s top seeds.

WTA Istanbul

The Istanbul Cup begins Monday with world No 17 Elina Svitolina in action against Magdalena Rybarikova. The 20-year-old Ukrainian Svitolina switches back to hard court this year after an unspectacular run on grass that followed excellent clay court results. She the French Open quarter-finals and also won the clay court tile in Marrakech. On grass she was a first round exit at Eastbourne and fell in the second round of Wimbledon.

Istanbul also features Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Roberta Vinci on Monday, with Lesya Tsurenko and Daria Gavrilova, and Yaroslava Shvedova and Bojana Jovanovski in play as well.

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