Devvarman wins Asian Games tennis title

GUANGZHOU, China — India's Somdev Devvarman has won his second international multisports tennis title in two months, this time without the benefit of a parochial home crowd. Devvarman scored a 6-1, 6-2 upset victory over Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin on Tuesday at the Asian Games, adding another gold medal to his trophy case which already contains one from the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi last month. Both players are regulars on the ATP tour. Devvarman, who was born in Assam, India, now resides in Charlottesville, Virginia after attending the University of Virginia from 2005-08 and winning back-to-back American collegiate singles titles. It was one of Devarrman's biggest wins over a much higher-ranked player — Istomin is ranked 40th, Devvarman is 106th. When Istomin's forehand went wide on match point, Devvarman fell to the ground on his back and put his hands over his face. Istomin was not helped by eight double-faults and 45 unforced errors. Earlier, Taiwanese cyclist Hsiao Mei-yu of Taiwan won the women's individual road race in 2 hours, 47 minutes, 46 seconds over Santia Tri Kusuma of Indonesia and China's Zhao Na. But unlike the men's race Monday, when Park Sung-baek of South Korea was relegated from first to 19th for swaying from his line at the finish, giving defending champion Wong Kam Po of Hong Kong the gold, the women's event was clean at the finish with no protests. Likewise in the women's 20-kilometer walk, when defending champion and Guandong province native Liu Hong of China won gold in the six-competitor race. Masumi Fuchise of Japan was second and China's Li Yanfei third. There was some personal drama, however, for Liu — she walked the second half of the race carrying two warnings for "lifting" — failing to keep at least one foot in contact with the ground at all times — and a third would have meant disqualification. "We can predict all the conditions that might happen in the competition, so I'm not surprised to get two red cards," Liu said. "We have a full plan and I was confident. "In the first half I just closely followed the Japanese athlete (Fuchise), and in the last four kilometers, I began to go at my own pace." China's Wang Hao and Chu Yafei won gold and silver medals in the men's walk. Roller sports began a four-day run at the Guangzhou velodrome, with speedskate-style racing and roller skate competitions similar to ice skating. Sun Chaing-yang of Taiwan won the men's 300-meter time trial Tuesday and An Yi-seul of South Korea the women's event. There will be 30 gold medals presented Tuesday, including the men's and women's singles tennis winners, the rugby sevens, the women's 1,500 and men's 3,000 steeplechase at the track and the beach volleyball finals. Meanwhile, local media are reporting that blackmarket tickets to events featuring Chinese star athletes are commanding up to 20 times the face values. Scalpers were doing a brisk business for badminton superstar Lin Dan and Athens Olympics gold medal hurdler Liu Xiang. Police have arrested nearly 200 scalpers for attempting to sell more than 1,300 tickets. More than 2.3 million tickets have been issued for the games, but many of the venues are only half-full because companies given tickets as part of their sponsorship package are not being used. China moved closer to its record 166 gold-medal total from the Doha Asian Games four years ago, hitting the 155 mark early Tuesday. With 331 medal events out of 476 contested in the games that end Saturday, China seems certain to easily surpass its 2006 mark. BC-Asian Games-Roundup