James Blake looks sharp in beating Bjorn Phau in grass-court debut
James Blake served his way to a 6-4, 6-1 win against qualifier Bjorn Phau on Tuesday in the first round of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany.
The seventh-ranked American landed 71% of his first serves in his first grass-court match this year. He needed only 50 minutes to win against Phau, ranked 148th in the world.
"This was one of my best serving performances this year," Blake said. "That gave me confidence to play my game -- everything just fell into place."
Fourth-seeded Mikhail Youzhny advanced with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Dmitry Tursunov and next faces Nicolas Kiefer, who won here in 1999. Kiefer fought back to a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Robin Haase.
No. 5 Marcos Baghdatis beat Jan Hernych, 6-4, 7-5. Other winners included Fabrice Santoro and Steve Darcis.
Andy Murray advanced to the third round of the Artois Championships at Queen's Club in London in only 14 minutes when Sebastien Grosjean quit because of a left leg injury.
Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko defeated Pablo Cuevas, 6-3, 6-2, and second-seeded Tommy Robredo beat Michal Przysiezny, 7-5, 6-2, in the first round of the Warsaw Open.
Shahar Peer was beaten in the first round of the Torneo Barcelona by Nuria Llagostera Vives, 7-5, 6-2.
Fourth-seeded Sybille Bammer lost to Melanie South, 6-3, 7-5, in the DFS Classic at Birmingham, England.
OLYMPICS
No tryouts for U.S. basketball team
The United States will pick its basketball squad for the Beijing Olympics without a tryout, USA Basketball Managing Director Jerry Colangelo said.
The Americans have changed their plans and will select the 12 players for Beijing before they report to Las Vegas later this month.
Originally, the team was to have potentially 16 players in camp and cut down to 12 on June 30.
JURISPRUDENCE
Former NASCAR employee files lawsuit
Mauricia Grant, who worked as a technical inspector responsible for certifying cars in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series from January 2005 until her termination last October, is suing NASCAR for $225 million, alleging racial and sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination.
