Tennis: Unheralded Slovakian Martin Klizan caused the shock of the tournament today as he knocked out fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round of the US Open. The Frenchman, who had been seeded to meet Olympic champion Andy Murray in the quarter-finals, was horribly out of sorts and crashed out 6-4 1-6 6-1 6-3.
Tsonga, a quarter-finalist here last year and a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last month, looked like he had turned things around in the second set but instead Klizan pulled away again in the third.
The Slovakian then opened up a 4-0 lead in the fourth set and, although Tsonga responded to reduce the deficit to 4-3, it was not good enough.
Klizan, ranked 52nd in the world, has had a good season but had never beaten anyone close to the calibre of Tsonga before and lost to Britain’s Dan Evans in the Davis Cup earlier this year.
Eleventh seed Nicolas Almagro had to fight back from two sets to one down to defeat German Philipp Petzschner 6-3 5-7 5-7 6-4 6-4 while 17th seed Kei Nishikori beat Tim Smyczek of the US 6-2 6-2 6-4.
Crowd favourite Ana Ivanoviceased into the third round of the US Open with a comfortable win over Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson. The Serb was tipped for glory after winning her first Grand Slam title at the French Open in 2008 and becoming world number one, but instead injuries and a crisis of confidence hit and she has never really recovered.
Remarkably, since her Roland Garros triumph, she has not been past the fourth round at any Grand Slam and has gone out in the first round of all of them over the past three years.
This year has also been patchy, but it has been so far, so good at Flushing Meadows and she hit 39 winners in a 6-2 6-2 victory today. The first-round loss for eighth seed Caroline Wozniacki has opened up Ivanovic's draw and a quarter-final appearance looks well within her grasp.
Fellow Serb Jelena Jankovic, whose career has also been on a downward spiral, progressed with a 6-4 6-2 win over Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino, while there were also wins for Dominika Cibulkova and Maria Kirilenko.
Russia Kirilenko, the 14th seed, has been in fine form this summer and she beat Hungary's Greta Arn 6-3 6-2, while 13th seed Cibulkova had a tougher time in a 7-6 (7-3) 7-6 (7/3) victory over Bojana Jovanovski.
Ivanovic, who is coached by Britain's Nigel Sears, the father of Andy Murray's girlfriend Kim, is optimistic she is on the right path.
"I'm really motivated," she said. "I want to get back to the top and back in contention to win grand slams again. It's been a long process of getting my mind there and my body and game and everything together.
"Still it's going to be a lot of hard work, but I'm starting to enjoy it as well. I know, if it doesn't happen this week, it's coming. Things are coming together.
"That's what I want to focus on and give myself the best possible chance to achieve that. I take everything personally and I'm such a perfectionist. When you have tough matches and when you lose, it's all in the public eye. It's not easy to deal with it yourself, and yet you have to deal with it in front of so many people.
"It's been a long time since I have been in the quarter-finals in a grand slam. So that would be my next step."