Sports
Fish Advances at Farmers Classic
The Beverly Hills resident moves into the third round at UCLA.
As the top-seeded player at this year's Farmers Classic, American Mardy Fish knows that the spotlight only grows brighter and the crowds only get bigger the deeper he gets in the tournament.
So playing the featured night match Thursday in Straus Stadium at the Los Angeles Tennis Center only served to sharpen his focus and raise Fish's game to a higher level.
Fish got all he could handle in the first set from Luxembourg's Gilles Muller but survived a set point and dominated the tiebreaker 7-1.
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Cranking his game up another notch in the second set, Fish cruised to a 6-1 victory to take the match in straight sets and earn a spot in the quarterfinals Friday at 4 p.m. against eighth-seeded Russian Igor Kunitsyn, who beat American Ryan Sweeting in two tiebreaks.
Fish had the crowd on his side, for he lives just up the road in Beverly Hills, where he married Deal or No Deal model Stacey Gardner in a ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel in 2008. He is gunning for his second straight tour title, having won in Atlanta last week.
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Perhaps the most compelling of Friday's quarterfinals is the first—a high noon showdown between Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei and 19-year-old Ryan Harrison of Louisiana.
Lu upset third-seeded Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-4 Wednesday while Harrison, who cracked the Top 100 in the ATP rankings after reaching the semifinals in Atlanta last week, beat Michael Russell by the same score.
The other two quarterfinals pit American Alex Bogomolov Jr. against fourth-seeded Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil on the grandstand court at 4 p.m. and second-seeded Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina against Ernests Gulbis of Latvia at 7:30 p.m. on the stadium court.
2011 FARMERS CLASSIC
Thursday's Results
SINGLES
Second Round
(1) Mardy Fish (USA) d. Gilles Muller (LUX), 7-6 (1), 6-1
(8) Igor Kunitsyn (RUS) d. Ryan Sweeting (USA), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (6)
Alex Bogomolov Jr. (USA) d. (7) Grigor Dimitrov (BUL), 6-4, 6-3
(4) Thomaz Bullucci (BRA) d. Alejandro Falla (COL), 6-0, 6-1
DOUBLES
Quarterfinals
Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE)-Frank Moser (GER) d. Michael Berrer (GER)-Tommy Haas (GER), 6-4, 6-4
(3) Mark Knowles (BAH) / Xavier Malisse (BEL) d. Thomaz Bellucci (BRA) / Alejandro Falla (COL), 6-3, 6-2
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