Projo Sports Blog

Fabrice Santoro of France returned to the scene of his 2007 Campbell's Hall of Fame Tennis Championships triumph today and displayed the same smooth strokes that carried him to victory 12 months ago.

The No. 2 seed this year, Santoro defeated Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, 7-6 (4), 6-2, in the first of five matches scheduled for the stadium at the Newport Casino. After winning the tiebreaker, Santoro broke Qureshi's serve in the first game of the second set and made it stand for the duration of the match. He played so well that Qureshi never had a break point.

As one of the top four seeds in the 28-man tournament, Santoro drew a first-round bye. The Thursday start was the latest in his 20-year career.

Santoro will play Ivan Navarro of Spain in the quarterfinals Friday. Navarro just walked off an outside court a 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4 winner over Kevin Anderson of South Africa.

American Vincent Spadea took the first set of his match against third-seeded Nicolas Mahut of France, 6-2.

Countrymen Rohann Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj of India are warming up for their quarterfinal match.

 Tags  Fabrice Santoro Newport Tennis

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