Bartoli reaches last eight at Eastbourne

EASTBOURNE, England: Marion Bartoli of France reached the quarterfinals of the Eastbourne championships yesterday after defeating Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada 6-2, 6-2.
After an early exchange of breaks, the fourth seeded Bartoli broke her opponent again to lead 3-2, but then had to recover from 0-40 as she served out the set.
In the second, Bartoli gave up just five points on serve, winning six of the final seven games.
American Christina McHale failed to match the first-round performance that ousted former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki from the grass-court tournament, falling 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia.
Ekaterina Makarova, who ousted Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the first round, advanced with a 6-4, 7-5 win over British qualifier Laura Robson. Fifth seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany also advanced after defeating Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa 6-3, 6-2. Seventh-seeded Lucie Safarova overcame Heather Watson 7-6 (5), 6-1 of Britain.
On the men’s side, defending champion Andreas Seppi of Italy defeated Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq 7-6 (2), 6-3.
Schiavone fights off match points to beat Begu
In Den Bosch, Netherlands, Francesca Schiavone saved four match points to beat Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (8) at the Unicef Open yesterday.
The 2010 French Open champion served 14 double-faults and fell behind 6-2 in the decisive tiebreaker before rallying back to win it 10-8.
Schiavone, who beat fifth-seeded Maria Kirilenko in the first round, earned a quarterfinal against Kim Clijsters.
Earlier in men’s play, Tatsuma Ito of Japan took less than an hour to beat third-seeded Austrian Jurgen Melzer 6-2, 6-2.
Paes threatens to quit
India’s Olympic team
In New Delhi, leading doubles player Leander Paes threatened to quit India’s Olympic team if he’s paired with a lower-ranked player and compatriots Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna play together in London.
Paes wrote to the All India Tennis Association yesterday even as the national body tried to work out a compromise after Bhupathi and Bopanna refused to partner Paes at the Olympics, according to the NDTV news channel, which also posted the letter on its website.
Bhupathi and Bopanna say they should be a pair as they have been a team on the ATP Tour this year, while AITA feels Paes should have first choice because he’s ranked higher than them.
India could have entered two teams but picked only Paes and Bhupathi as AITA felt they had the best chance of winning a medal.
Paes wrote he was comfortable playing with a lower-ranked player if that was the only men’s doubles pair representing India, but he added he should choose a partner if Bhupathi and Bopanna were available for selection.
Paes, who has played in five Olympics and was a singles bronze medalist at Atlanta in 1996, said he would “have no other option but to withdraw from the Olympics” if the doubles selection was based on the refusal of the two players to partner him.

“We cannot be condoning or rewarding the drama enacted by Mahesh and Rohan,” Paes wrote. “This would be a bad precedent for current and future sports persons (particularly tennis players) in our country.”
The deadline for sending in entries is Thursday.