TENNIS in DEPTH.

Serbian sixth seed Janko Tipsarevic also advanced, winning an epic marathon tie-breaker and a lopsided one to eliminate Ivo Karlovic 7-6 (16/14), 7-6 (7/1) despite 18 aces from the Croatian, who lost in last year’s final. Tipsarevic will next face Slovenian qualifier Blaz Kavcic, who eliminated Colombia’s Robert Farah 6-1, 6-4.

Mardy Fish needed only 20 minutes to reach the second round of the $442,500 ATP Delray Beach International Championships when German rival Bjorn Phau retired. Fish led 5-0 and had dropped only six points in Tuesday’s match, breaking Phau twice before the German halted the match, advancing the American into a second-round meeting with Brazil’s Ricardo Mello. South African fifth seed Kevin Anderson rallied to beat US lucky loser Donald Young 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 after two hours and 30 minutes, booking a second-round match against Frenchman Florent Serra.

In the night match, Juan Martin del Potro easily beat Richard Berankis 6-4, 6-1 to advance. Del Potro, of Argentina, won 79 percent of his first serves, converted 80 percent (four of five) of his break-point chances and kept his double faults to a minimum (two) in the 76-minute match. Japan’s Kei Nishikori also opened with a victory, downing Argentina’s Brian Dabul 6-2, 7-6 (7/5). He will next face US wild card James Blake, who ousted German seventh seed Benjamin Becker on Monday.

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Roger Federer sealed his place in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoors in Basle. Home favourite Federer beat Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic 6-3 6-4 to safely progress through to the last eight.

Andy Roddick continued his push for a place in the ATP World Tour Finals by beating Sam Querrey in the first round. Returning after a fortnight on the sidelines with a knee injury, Roddick beat fellow United States player Sam Querrey 7-5 7-6 (8-6). Both players fired in 16 aces in a hard-fought encounter.

World number one Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Robin Soderling and Federer have already booked their places at the ATP World Tour Finals, when the world’s top eight players will lock horns at London’s 02 Arena from 21-28 November – leaving three slots yet to be filled. Roddick is currently ranked third among the players yet to qualify, behind Tomas Berdych and David Ferrer.

Federer needed just an hour to defeat his Serbian opponent and was delighted with his performance. “That’s two perfect matches in a row,” said Federer. “How much better can it get? “I played well, served well and had hardly any errors. This is about as good as it gets. If I can keep it like this for the whole event, that would be amazing.”

But at the same time the 29-year-old does not want to risk over-confidence either. “I don’t want to get used to this, that could be a danger,” he stated. “Beating Janko [who took him to five sets in their last match at the 2008 Australian Open] is a good win. He’s on a Davis Cup finals team after all. “I’m happy to get this win, but nothing is guaranteed.”

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Defending champion Novak Djokovic got his Swiss Indoors campaign off to an impressive start in Basle as he brushed aside the challenge of lanky Latvian Ernests Gulbis 6-4 6-2. The 23-year-old needed just 71 minutes to record an impressive win as he seeks to claim his third title of the season ahead of a busy year-end including the ATP Tour Championships and the Davis Cup final.

Fellow Serbian Victor Troicki is also hitting form at the right time. Having been crowned Kremlin Cup champion in Moscow last week, Troicki hammered Germany’s Michael Berrer 6-3 6-0 in just 49 minutes. And to cap a perfect day for Serbian players, Janko Tipsarevic coasted through to the second round 6-2 6-4 over Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan. Next up for Tipsarevic is home-town favourite Roger Federer.

Sixth seed Marin Cilic beat Switzerland’s Marco Chiudinelli 6-3 6-3 and there were also wins for Richard Gasquet – a 6-3 6-1 conqueror of Yen-Hsun Lu – Andrey Golubev and Santiago Giraldo.

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Serbia has reached the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas final for the first time, and will be at home to France following Janko Tipsarevic’s straight-sets win over Radek Stepanek.

The Serbs’ No. 2 player defeated Stepanek 60 76(6) 64 in the decisive fifth rubber of the Serbia-Czech Republic semifinal in Belgrade. The tie went to the wire following Novak Djokovic’s four-set victory earlier in the day against Tomas Berdych.

Tipsarevic rode the wave of Djokovic’s win in an emphatic first set, in which he stroked the ball beautifully while Stepanek took seven games to get going. But the second set went with serve until the tiebreak, when Stepanek had the better chances.

He got the early minibreak, and while Tipsarevic clawed his way back, Stepanek always looked the stronger. But the shootout was characterised by increasingly nervous rallies, with neither player trusting himself to hit through his groundstrokes. A tentative 26-stroke rally saw Stepanek to set point at 6-5, and a slightly mis-hit forehand that caught the line opened up the court for the Czech to win the set on a follow-up forehand. But he overhit it by the smallest of margins, and the tiebreak was level at 6-6.

An unreturnable serve from Tipsarevic gave Serbia set point at 7-6, and Tipsarevic gambled by charging the second serve to hit a clean backhand winner down the line to claim the breaker 8-6.

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Novak Djokovic defied injury to keep Serbia’s Davis Cup hopes alive in a thrilling battle with Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in Belgrade.

The world number two looked down and out when he suffered a serious-looking knee problem midway through the second set, having lost the first.

But he battled through and went from strength to strength to win 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-4 as Berdych struggled to find anything left in the tank.

Djokovic dropped serve in game seven to lose the first set 6-4, and was under pressure at 15-30 in the fifth game of the second and with Berdych looking more comfortable all around.

But a stunning shot to scoop up what looked a certain forehand winner and deposit the ball back at Berdych’s feet seemed to turn the match. The Czech netted the ensuing volley to lift both the home crowd and Djokovic, who went on to hold serve.

But he damaged his knee in the next game as he lunged to retrieve a smash and, after seven minutes of treatment, was forced to dig in thereafter in a series of lengthy rallies.

He broke to lead 5-3 and then served out the set before powering through the next 6-2 with three breaks of the unusually vulnerable Berdych serve.

Berdych recovered from 0-30 to hold in game seven and keep the fourth set on serve – but Djokovic made the breakthrough in his opponent’s next service game to lead 5-4.

And he served out to love in imperious style to complete a four-set win in three hours and 14 minutes and level the tie at 2-2, with Janko Tipsarevic to face Radek Stepanek in the decider.

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Wins for Radek Stepanek and Janko Tipsarevic have left Serbia and Czech Republic level after the first day of the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas semifinal. Radek Stepanek won the opening rubber over Viktor Troicki 46 62 64 64 but Czech No. 1 couldn’t find his form against Janko Tiparevic, he sank to a 75 62 26 76(5) defeat.

A day that promised so much for the still young nation of Serbia has got off to a dreadful start. Having lost the world No 2 Novak Djokovic for the opening day’s action before a ball was hit, the 17,000 home crowd in the Belgrade Arena had to watch Djokovic’s replacement Troicki go down 46 62 64 64 to Stepanek to leave the Czech Republic one-up.

Djokovic, who only arrived from New York on Wednesday, looked sharp in practice on Thursday but on Friday morning reported a stomach complaint related to his lingering jetlag and fatigue following his US Open final on Monday might. After being examined by the tie’s neutral doctor, he was diagnosed with ‘acute gastroenteritis’ and was replaced by Troicki. But Djokovic says he expects to be considered for selection for the doubles if the Serbian team wants him to partner Nenad Zimonjic.

By then Serbia might be in the last chance saloon, because following Stepanek’s victory over Troicki, the world No. 7 and Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych was a clear favourite to beat Janko Tipsarevic in the second of the opening day’s singles.

Djokovic told a Serbian television interview as Troicki and Stepanek warmed up that he felt his withdrawal was no big deal, as he had full confidence in Troicki. That confidence seemed vindicated when the Serb broke in the opening game, and he had further chances to break in the opening set.

But Troicki’s inability to pull away from Stepanek was the writing on the wall. His big serve saw him take the first set, but by then Stepanek had worked out how to play him, and broke twice to take the second with some glorious all-court tennis. Troicki had three break points in the third set but Stepanek saved them all with ease and broke in the 10th game to take a 2-1 lead as the Serb looked to have no answer to Stepanek’s canny drop shots and lobs.

The Serb finally got his second break of the Czech serve in the sixth game of the fourth set, and at 4-2 a fifth set was on the cards. But Stepanek broke straight back, his varied play seriously eroding Troicki’s confidence on the big points, and the Serb hit a backhand wide on Stepanek’s first match point.

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 Andy Roddick crashed out of the US Open after ranting at a line judge who called a foot fault against him.

Roddick was serving at 5-2 down in the third set of his second-round match with Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic when a line judge called the fault on what would have been an ace.

The ninth seed appeared to ask the female official if it was his right foot which caused the fault and was told it was, when in fact it was his left foot which touched the line.

“Not once in my career has my right foot gone in front of my left foot, never. That is unbelievable,” Roddick complained.

The 28-year-old’s tirade went on for some time, although he stopped short of the infamous foul-mouthed outburst by Serena Williams which occurred during last year’s semi-final with Kim Clijsters.

However, he did tell umpire Enrique Molina “I think you and I both know that’s ridiculous,” as he left the court to change his shorts after the fourth set.

Tipsarevic won that set 6-3 and went on to seal a 3-6 7-5 6-3 7-6 (7/4) victory to book his place in the third round.

Roddick admitted he had gone “too far” with his tirade, adding: “I wasn’t upset with the call, I just expect my umpires to know their left foot from the right foot.

“The stubbornness…I let mine get in the way. I got called for two others after that and have no issue with it. In the moment I was just stupefied.

“It’s the fact I couldn’t get her to admit it wasn’t the right foot which infuriated me, the lack of common sense was unbelievable to me. We have got to be able to have a test like ‘Point to your right foot, point to your left foot, now call lines’.

“In hindsight did I let it go too far? Probably. It was probably a correctable mistake and I let it get to me more than I should have.”

However, Roddick refused to blame the incident on his defeat, which came just two days after he celebrated his 28th birthday with a comfortable victory in the first round.

“I was down 5-2 in the third set already, if anything it shifted the energy a little bit and after that I played okay,” he added.

“It had zero impact in the match, it’s not like I was up. I’m sure a lot’s going to get written about it but the actual impact on the match was close to zero. At that point any change in energy was a good change for me.

“He played great. He played very high risk and executed for four sets. I kept telling myself this has to have an expiration date on it but unfortunately I needed another set for that.

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Tomas Berdych won his first match since losing the Wimbledon final to Rafael Nadal at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington.

Berdych claimed a 7-6 (7/2) 4-6 6-1 win over Dmitry Tursunov in two hours 17 minutes in his first competitive action since reaching his first grand slam final.

Berdych will next face Andrey Golubev, the 16th seed, who beat Kristof Vliegen 6-2 7-6 (9/7).

Wildcard David Nalbandian claimed a 6-1 6-3 win over seventh seed Stanislas Wawrinka in one hour eight minutes to progress to join Berdych in the third round.

Four other seeds joined Wawrinka in being eliminated in the second round.

Sixth seed Sam Querrey, ninth seed Ernests Gulbis, 10th seed Radek Stepanek and 11th seed Lleyton Hewitt were all ousted from the tournament.

Janko Tipsarevic claimed a 7-6 (7/3) 6-3 win over Querrey to set up a third-round contest with Alejandro Falla, while Marco Chiudinelli defeated Stepanek 6-1 6-3 and will next meet Nalbandian.

Gulbis and Hewitt both retired.

Illya Marchenko was leading Gulbis 6-1 1-0 when the Latvian retired due to the heat, while a right calf injury accounted for Hewitt while the Australian was trailing Falla 7-5 3-2.

Marchenko will next face eighth seed Marcos Baghdatis, who defeated Horacio Zeballos 7-6 (7/3) 7-6 (7/5).

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