AFP
Vienna

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga shook off jetlag to defeat 37-year-old Tommy Haas 6-3, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4 to reach the Austria Open second round and keep his World Tour Finals hopes alive.
French star Tsonga only arrived in Vienna on Tuesday night after losing the Shanghai Masters final against Novak Djokovic on Sunday.
He overcame 32 unforced errors, counter-balanced by 41 winners and five breaks of serve, to deny Haas, playing on a 466th ranking after coming back from a third shoulder surgery.
“I arrived in Europe, and had had two nights at home in Switzerland,” said Tsonga. “When I got here on Tuesday night, I had a hit on the court before going to the hotel. During the match, I was really tired, especially during the second set. But Haas is not playing his best yet. I struggled but I held on for the win. It was good to win, but I need to recover for the next round.”
Tsonga, seeded fourth, is in the mix for one of two remaining places in the eight-man field at the World Tour Finals in London from November 15. He stands provisional ninth with Vienna top seed David Ferrer holding eighth behind Japan’s Kei Nishikori.
Haas said that he is already looking ahead to 2016 when he will be playing for at least the first half of the season with a protected ranking due to his injury comeback.
But his defeat by Tsonga still stung. “How can you be happy when you lose? It’s never a good feeling. But I’m pleased that I’m still playing good tennis. I have a lot of work to do though,” said the former world No. 2.
Second seed Kevin Anderson began with a 6-4, 7-5 win to eliminate the last Austrian, Andreas Haider-Maurer, a victory punctuated by 19 aces from the big South African. Unpredictable Latvian Ernests Gulbis out-aced John Isner 23 to 16 in a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 knockout of the American third seed to reach the quarter-finals.
The defeat meant that Isner’s already slim chances of qualifying for the eight-man field in London took a major hit as the provisional 12th-placed candidate was beaten.
Gulbis, who has ridden a ranking roller-coaster in his patchy career, currently stands at a humble 117th in the world. The Latvian son of a millionaire businessman improved to 3-2 over Isner, who had won their last two meetings. Gulbis went up an early break in the final set and held the edge until the end.
ATP all-time serving king Ivo Karlovic beat Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-4, 7-5 with the seventh seed firing a mere 10 aces. In a first-round match, Italy’s eighth seed Fabio Fognini defeated Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the pair’s first meeting since 2009.

Safarova completes Singapore line-up
French Open finalist Lucie Safarova left it late but managed to take the eighth and final spot in the WTA Finals which begin at the weekend. The player, who missed time in recent weeks due to being hospitalized with a bacterial infection, claimed the spot due to Carla Suarez Navarro’s loss in the Kremlin Cup and will make her debut at the season wrap-up after also qualifying in doubles with Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Swiss Timea Bacsinszky and Venus Williams will serve as alternates.
“I’m really excited to qualify for the first time,” said Safarova. “It has been a dream year and to be one of the eight qualifiers in singles and also compete in the doubles is something that makes me very proud. There have already been so many highlights this year, and I hope to finish it playing some more great tennis in front of the amazing Singapore crowd.”
The sixth and seventh positions in the field were sewn up on Wednesday as US Open champion Flavia Pennetta and Germany’s Angelique Kerber qualified.
With world number one Serena Williams choosing not to play in the year-ender, Romanian Simona Halep heads the elite field, which includes Wimbledon finalist Garbine Muguruza of Spain, five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova, double Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska plus Kerber, Pennetta and Safarova.

Kvitova to lead Czechs in Fed final
World number five Petra Kvitova will spearhead defending champions Czech Republic in the Fed Cup final against Russia in Prague on November 14 and 15. On the hard courts of Prague’s O2 Arena, the Czechs will also rely on ninth-ranked Lucie Safarova, Karolina Pliskova (15) and Barbora Strycova (42). Kvitova and Safarova have led the Czech Republic to three trophies from the last four Fed Cup editions.
Russia have called up world number three Maria Sharapova, 24th-ranked Ekaterina Makarova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (31) and Elena Vesnina (111). Vesnina and Makarova are in the top ten of the WTA doubles rankings, ranked seventh and ninth, respectively.
The two nations have met five times in the Fed Cup before but three of those meetings were between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. The Czech team lead their head-to-head record with Russia 3-2, including a victory in the most recent encounter in the 2011 final in Moscow.
The Czechs have won the trophy eight times, including five victories as Czechoslovakia which went on to split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
Four-time champions Russia, who are trying to bounce back from a disappointing 2014 season, when they lost 4-0 to Australia in their opening round clash, will be playing in their 11th Fed Cup final overall.