Tipsarevic Topples In-Form Querrey

© Getty ImagesJanko Tipsarevic ousted the in-form Sam Querrey.

A week after squandering a match point chance in a semi-final defeat to Sam Querrey in Los Angeles, Janko Tipsarevic defeated the No. 6 seed 7-6(3), 6-3 Wednesday to reach the third round of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, an ATP World Tour 500 hard-court tennis tournament in Washington D.C.

The Serbian, who narrowly missed out on a place in his third career ATP World Tour final with defeat to Querrey last week, recorded his first win in three attempts over the American in just 78 minutes.

In a first set where neither player was able to create a break point chance, Tipsarevic prevailed in the ensuing tie-break before breaking serve in the eighth game of the second set. "He had the one break point and I double faulted... and that's all it takes,” said Querrey.

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Tipsarevic closed out victory with a love service game, finishing with three successive aces; he struck a total of 16 aces in the match.

"I was serving really well," said Tipsarevic. "Sixteen aces is very nice. I won a lot of love games, which made me fresher on the return. I was focused from start to finish and I could see that Sam was a little tired from all the matches in Los Angeles."

The 26-year-old Tipsarevic, who married long-term girlfriend Biljana Sesevic one month ago, improved to a 16-14 match record on the season, highlighted by a runner-up finish on grass in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (l. to Stakhovsky) in June.

World No. 20 Querrey, who met President Obama after promoting First Lady Michelle Obama’s "Let’s Move!" initiative at the White House on Tuesday, dropped to a 33-16 mark. The 22 year old has won four ATP World Tour titles this season and is currently joint first with Mardy Fish in the Olympus US Open Series Bonus Challenge standings after triumphing at the Farmers Classic (d. Murray) last week.

Asked if he was concerned about the loss, Querrey said: "Not at all. I'm still playing great; last week was awesome. It's tough to turn right around. Last week I had three tough two-and-a-half hour matches Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then I had to fly across the country and play in different weather conditions. I'm looking forward to Toronto and Cincinnati."

Another newlywed, No. 10 seed Radek Stepanek, was unable to post a win in his first tour-level match since March as he lost to Swiss Marco Chiudinelli 6-1, 6-3 in one hour and 10 minutes. Stepanek married former WTA Tour pro Nicole Vaidisova last month in Prague.

The seeds exodus continued Wednesday, as No. 9 Ernests Gulbis and No. 11 Lleyton Hewitt both retired from their second-round matches. Gulbis trailed 73rd-ranked Illya Marchenko of Ukraine 6-1, 1-0 when he withdrew on account of the heat, while Hewitt retired with a right calf injury after falling behind to Colombian Alejandro Falla 7-5, 3-2.

Falla said: "Just like yesterday I had many break points on my serve but I went for it on the big points and I won them. My serve helped me a lot in those moments. The match could have changed had he broken me in one of those games."