Black Tennis Pros

LONDON: French star Gael Monfils reached the Wimbledon second round on Monday and dedicated his victory to a cancer-stricken friend who has slipped into a coma.

Ninth seed Monfils said he found it hard to concentrate on his opening match, which resulted in a 6-4, 7-6, 6-3 win over Germany's Matthias Bachinger, after his friend and former physio Philippe Manicom was placed in an artificial coma.

"I did the job without playing a great match because I had too much to think about," said Monfils.

"My former physio Philippe Manicom has cancer. I was one of the last people he spoke to before he was put in a coma as he was suffering so much. It's not easy for me." 

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LONDON, June 7 (UPI) -- Jo-Wilfried Tsonga dropped just one game Tuesday in sailing through his second-round match at the Aegon Championships in London.

Tsonga, seeded fifth in the grass-court tournament, was on the court just 47 minutes before finishing off a 6-0, 6-1 rout of Michael Berrer. Tsonga won 68 percent of the points in the match, including a healthy 63 percent off Berrer's serve.

Third-seeded Andy Roddick also advanced but in a much more difficult 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (5-7), 6-4 match against Feliciano Lopez. Roddick managed just two breaks in the match -- both coming in the third set.

Wild-card entrant James Ward pulled the upset of the day, knocking off fourth-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka 7-6 (7-3), 6-3. But seventh-seeded Fernando Verdasco topped Nicolas Mahut 6-2, 6-3, 10th-seeded Michael Llodra took out Julien Benneteau while defending champion and No. 13-seeded Sam Querrey defeated Rainer Schuettler 7-6 (8-6), 5-7, 6-3.

Ninth-seeded David Nalbandian got past Illya Marchenko 6-3, 6-4 and No. 12 Juan Martin del Potro beat Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-2 in first-round matches. Also in the first round 14th-seeded Janko Tipsarevic and No. 15 Kevin Anderson advanced with wins.

Unseeded first-round winners Tuesday were Matthew Ebden, Radek Stepanek, Adrian Mannarino, Michael Russell and Xavier Malisse.

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American James Blake advanced to the championship match of the AEGON Championships at the Queen's Club in London when fellow American Andy Roddick retired from the match at 4-4 in the first set because of an ankle injury.

When asked about Roddick's injury Blake said, "I think he was hurt before, I saw him pull up."

"It was unfortunate, but Andy is such a great player and he doesn't want to endanger the injury anymore. He normally moves so well and you could tell this wasn't the same Andy Roddick."

For the title Blake will play Britain's Andy Murray. To a lot of crowd laughter and clapping Blake said, "I realize that the crowd probably won't be behind me, but I have to remind you that I'm half British."

When asked if he would ever consider a change Blake said, "I've been asked about that but they (Americans) have been so good to me, I can't turn my back on them."





In women's doubles at the AEGON Classic, Americans Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears defeated Italians Francesca Schiavone and Roberta Vinci to advance to the championship match where they will play Zimbabwe's Cara Black and American Liezel Huber for the title.

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