Verdasco, Querrey soar into second round at China Open

Fresh off a plane from Madrid, Spain, where they were competing for their country in the Davis Cup semifinals, No. 5 seed Fernando Verdasco (pictured) and No. 8 Sam Querrey, were both able to fight off jet lag to advance to the second round at the China Open in Beijing.

Receiving a last minute wild card entry after not originally signing up for the event, Verdasco had little trouble in defeating American journeyman Bobby Reynolds, 6-3, 6-3, to set a second round clash with former World No. 1 and fellow Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero. In the 66 minute match, Verdasco broke serve on four occasions and won 77 percent of his first serve points, which helped him improve to 3-0 lifetime against the former Vanderbilt University tennis star. Verdasco now owns a 40-22 record on the season and is looking to win his second title of the year, after winning the Umag, Croatia tournament in the summer.

Querrey, who played his heart out in two Davis Cup singles losses in his debut last weekend, overcame an extremely slow start to defeat rising young American Jesse Levine, 1-6, 6-2, 7-6(4). Querrey won 69 percent of first serve points, while smashing six aces and breaking Levine’s serve on three occasions. Querrey, who won his first ATP title early this year in Las Vegas, won his 27th match of the year. He faces German Bjorn Phau in the second round on Thursday.

In other significant news, American Brendan Evans earned the “1st Annual Justin Cohen Gutsy Performance Award”, which is given to a player who plays his heart out and is rewarded with a pass into the next round due to his amazing efforts. The only problem with Evans earning this award is that he now has a second round date tomorrow afternoon against No. 2 seed Andy Roddick, who isn’t likely to let the young qualifier enjoy his recent award.

Back in the ITF junior days, Evans was one of the most promising juniors, having won three of the four junior grand slam doubles titles with Scott Oudsema in 2004 and signing a big time Nike endorsement deal. Nowadays, little is said about the Key Biscayne, Florida, based tennis player. This season, he won his first ever ATP level match against Chilean Paul Capdeville in Newport on the grass and played in his first grand slam main draw at the US Open in August. Today in a match that lasted roughly two hours, Evans fought off three match points in a courageous effort to defeat Roko Karanusic, 7-6(5), 1-6, 7-6(10), in what will surely be a match for the Evans tennis history books. Keep in mind, the prestigious award he earned won’t be given out often, so hopefully the young American continues to work hard. The hard work all starts Thursday afternoon for the youngster on Center Court against Roddick, the former World No. 1 and US Open champion.