Paes, Begemann knock out top seeds in Winston-Salem

Winston-Salem (USA), Aug 26

Leander Paes and his German partner Andre Begemann knocked out top seeds Lukasz Kubot and Nenad Zimonjic in straight sets to storm into the semifinals of the ATP Winston-Salem Open.

The unseeded Indo-German pair upset the Poland-Serbian combo 6-4 6-4 in their quarterfinal that lasted one hour and 16 minutes.

With this win, Paes now has a chance to play his first final of the season on ATP Tour. The 43-year-old, who has played a number of Challenger level tournaments this season, has seen his ranking plummet to 72.

He won two titles — Biella (Italy) and Busan (Korea) — on the Challenger circuit. Before this, reaching the semifinals of the Delray Beach Open with Jeremy Chardy was Paes' best show this season. They had lost to Mike and Bob Bryan.

It was a sort of revenge win for Paes, who had lost to the Polish duo of Kubot and Marcin Matkowski in the Rio Olympics first round along with compatriot Rohan Bopanna. Paes and Begemann now face third seeds Robert Lindstedt and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, who got past Marin Draganja and Dominic Inglot 7-6(12) 6-7(4) 10-8 in the quarterfinal.

Gasquet ousted

Top seed Richard Gasquet suffered a surprise 7-5 6-3 loss to an unsung John Millman in the quarterfinals. Second seed Roberto Bautista Agut rolled past Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu 6-3 6-2. He takes on ninth seed Viktor Troicki, who outplayed 15th-seeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-4 3-6 6-4 in the last quarterfinal.

Kvitova advances, Vinci ousted in Connecticut

New Haven (USA): Petra Kvitova moved closer to a third straight Connecticut Open crown after defeating Ekaterina Makarova 6-3 6-1 to reach the semifinals.

Kvitova, who won this event the last two years as well as in 2012, stormed past her Russian opponent as she looks to join Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki as a four-time winner in the tournament.

To do that she will have to take down top seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, who had little trouble winning her quarterfinal match, topping Belgium's Kirsten Flipkens 6-1 6-4.

Swedish qualifier Johanna Larsson pulled off an upset when she beat second-seed Roberta Vinci 7-6(9) 6-1.

Larsson had lost in the final round of qualifying for the tournament, and only made the draw when other players withdrew.

Larsson, who is ranked 62nd in the world, now has a semifinal match-up with Elina Svitolina of Ukraine. Svitolina, the 10th seed, defeated Russia's Elena Vesnina 6-3 6-1. — Agencies