Tennis bits: Borna Coric to face compatriot Ivo Karlovic, twice his age, at ATP Bucharest

Croatia's 18-year-old rising star Borna Coric topped Sergiy Stakhovsky on Monday at the ATP Bucharest tournament to set up a second-round showdown with his 36-year-old compatriot Ivo Karlovic.

Borna Coric reached the semi-finals at February's Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. Satish Kumar / The National / February 26, 2015

ATP Bucharest

Croatia’s 18-year-old rising star Borna Coric will get a chance at his decorated 36-year-old compatriot Ivo Karlovic after scoring his seventh ATP-level singles win of the season on Monday.

Coric defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-2, 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/2) on the opening day of the ATP BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy to set up a second-round pairing with big-serving Karlovic, the world No 22 twice Coric’s age. Karlovic boasts six career ATP titles and 266 singles victory to his teenaged countryman’s 14 singles wins at the ATP level in his young career.

Coric has risen this season to world No 55 after became the youngest player to enter the top 100 last year since Rafael Nadal in 2003 with a semi-final run in Basel that included a memorable victory over Nadal.

Earlier this season Coric beat Andy Murray to reach the Dubai semi-finals to claim another famous win. His victory over Stakhovsky on Monday avenges a loss to the veteran world No 51 Ukrainian at February’s ATP Zagreb tournament in the first round.

Bucharest’s other first-day victors included Tunisian Malek Jaziri, defeating Florian Mayer on his comeback trail.

Daniel Gimeno-Traver beat world No 34 Viktor Troicki, who was the tournament’s sixth seed, and Mikhail Youzhny dashed the hopes of Romanian Marius Copil.

Youzhny arranges a meeting with second-seeded Gael Monfils, coming off a Monte Carlo Masters semi-final run. Top-seeded Gilles Simon will face either former world No 8 Janko Tipsarevic, also mounting a comeback campaign, or Thomas Fabbiano, with those two playing on Tuesday.

Fifth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez will be in action on Tuesday as well, meeting qualifier Lorenzo Giustino, seventh-seeded Jiri Vesely takes on Diego Schwartzman and eight-seeded Simone Bolelli will be challenged by Andrey Golubev.

Fed Cup

Twice French Open champion Serena Williams said her struggle to beat Sara Errani in the Fed Cup on Sunday had been a real “eye-opener” as the claycourt season gets into full swing.

World No 1 Williams eventually prevailed 4-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 against the dogged Italian to take her career record over her to 8-0 but the American was not impressed.

The US were beaten 3-2 as Williams and Alison Riske were thrashed 0-6, 3-6 in the doubles rubber by Errani and Flavia Pennetta, meaning they were relegated to World Group II.

“Today has been a big eye opener,” Williams said afterwards. “I’m totally not as ready for the claycourt season as I thought I was. Now I’m in the mindset of, ‘You know what, I’m not on hard court.’ I’m playing like I’m on hard court and I’m not.

“So I have to play and be ready to hit a thousand shots if necessary.”

Williams, 33, won her 19th singles grand slam at the Australian Open and her dominance has raised talk of her claiming all the majors this year.

The French Open has been her least successful of the four though despite claiming the title in Paris in 2002 and 2013.

Her doubles defeat on Sunday blotted an otherwise flawless Fed Cup record and left the US facing a battle to get back amongst the elite nations next year.

“We have to work harder,” US captain Mary Joe Fernandez said. “We came close today and need to just keep plugging away.

“The good news is that we have a lot of players in the top 100 and, hopefully, we can get two wins next year and get back into the World Group.”

WTA Stuttgart

The Women’s Stuttgart Open kicked off on Monday with German world No 74 Karina Witthoft upsetting compatriot Mona Barthel, ranked 39th, 7-5, 6-3.

The indoor clay tournament boasts start wattage with Maria Sharapova as its top seed and second-seeded Simona Halep, with Ana Ivanovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Petra Kvitova and Carla Suarez-Navarro among the others present.

Witthoft will face a tough assignment in the second rond in either Ivanovic or talented French world No 29 Caroline Garica, 21. Those two will face off with the tournament picking up steam for real on Tuesday.

World No 8 Ekaterina Makarova will also play Bethanie Mattek-Sands, No 13 Lucie Safarova faces Katerina Bondarenko, Suarez-Navarro takes on Evgeniya Rodina and worlds No 20 and 23 collide when rising star Garbine Muguruza battles Barbora Strycova.

ATP Barcelona

Sweden’s Elias Ymer advanced to the second round of the ATP Barcelona Open on Monday to set up a meeting of 19-year-olds.

Ymer defeated Dutch veteran Thiemo De Bakker in three sets, dropping the first set 6-7 (4/7) before storming back 7-5, 6-4 to win

Ymer, who surprisingly qualified for the Australian Open tournament proper in January, next faces fellow young gun, 16th-seeded Nick Kyrgios of Australia.

Others to win on the first day of the tournament Monday included Spaniards Pablo Andujar, Marcel Granollers and unheralded world No 222 Roberto Carballes Baena, who upset No 72 Jan-Lennard Struff.

Another local, Pablo Carreno-Busta, was beaten by Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili.

Mikhail Kukushkin, Thomaz Bellucci, Andrey Kuznetsov and Benoit Paire also won their opening ties.

The Barcelona draw is highlighted by top-seeded Kei Nishikori, facing Gabashvili in the second round, and second-seeded Rafael Nadal, to meet either Paolo Lorenzi or Nicolas Almagro in Round 2.

Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE