Querrey edges Nieminen in Winston-Salem Open

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina: American Sam Querrey edged Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen 4-6, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (12) on Thursday to advance to the Winston-Salem Open quarterfinals.
Querrey had 19 aces, but lost the first set to the left-handed Nieminen after leading 4-1. Querrey then had to overcome five match points in the third-set tiebreaker to advance to his fourth tournament quarterfinals this season.
“I just played some sloppy points (in the first set),” Querrey said. “I missed a few when I was up 4-2, and I missed some easy forehands later on. That kind of got me down, and it took a while for me to get back into it.
“That was just a lack of confidence right out of the gate ... but I knew that if I could get into a tiebreaker, I could win my serve and grind out a few points on his serve.”
The 29th-ranked Querrey will face unseeded Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.
“It’s always painful to lose a tight match,” Nieminen said. “When it got to 6-6 (in the third-set tiebreaker), I saw that he looked tired. That’s when I stopped playing the way I did before, and missed some shots. I wanted to make him run, but I should have gone for my shots like I did before.”
Querrey is the lone American player remaining in the final hard-court tournament before the US Open next week.
Qualifier Steve Johnson, who upset second-seeded Andreas Seppi of Italy on Tuesday, lost to Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun Lu 6-3, 6-2.
In other third round results late Wednesday night, Jurgen Melzer of Austria beat Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-4, 6-3; Dmitry Tursunov topped fellow Russian Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-3, 7-5; and Spain’s Fernando Verdasco downed Robin Haase of the Netherlands 6-4, 6-7 (10), 6-3.
Tommy Robredo, at No. 22 the highest-ranked player remaining in the tournament, faced France’s Gael Monfils in the night match.

Wozniacki on course

In New Haven, fourth seeded Caroline Wozniacki eased into the quarterfinals Wednesday night while top seeded Sara Errani crashed out of the WTA Tour New Haven Open, the final tune-up for the US Open.
Czech Petra Kvitova, who is seeded third, also booked her spot in the quarterfinals of the $690,000 hardcourt tournament.
Four-time champion Wozniacki beat Italian qualifier Karin Knapp 6-1, 7-5 while 2012 French Open runner-up Errani was stunned by Russian Ekaterina Makarova 7-5, 6-1 at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale University.
“She’s not a comfortable player for me, as I had lost the last couple times we played,” Makarova said. “So today I was trying to be extra aggressive on my serve and go to the net. I also tried to attack her second serve.” The former world No.1 Wozniacki captured this New Haven event four years in a row from 2008-11.
“I just wanted to try to get through this match in two sets, as I have had a bit of a cold the whole week and felt a little dizzy out there,” Wozniacki said. “She really stepped it up and started to play really well in the second set.” Kvitova, who won the 2011 Wimbledon title, outlasted American qualifier Alison Riske 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-3.
Errani’s loss makes this the first time in New Haven history that neither of the Top 2 seeds advanced to the quarters. Number two seed Angelique Kerber was eliminated on Tuesday.
Makarova’s quarterfinal opponent on Thursday will be red-hot Romanian Simona Halep, who came from behind to beat Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.
The 21-year-old Halep is aiming for her fourth title in seven tournaments and is playing some of her best tennis heading into the US Open, which begins Monday in New York.
Sixth-seeded American wild card Sloane Stephens slipped past German Julia Goerges 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 in a night match.