Journalist Collins dies; U.S. takes lead in Davis Cup

Bob Bryan, left, and Mike Bryan, playing at Indian Wells last March, gave the
United States a 2-1 lead over host Australia on Friday in the first round of the
Davis Cup. Photo by Paul Bauman

   On a sad day for tennis, former Stanford All-Americans Bob and Mike Bryan gave the United States a 2-1 lead over host Australia in the first round of the Davis Cup.
   Legendary journalist Bud Collins died at 86 at his home in Brookline, Mass., on Friday.
  Wrote Bryan Marquard of The Boston Globe, Collins' former newspaper: "Mr. Collins provided the sport with its most authoritative voice, and wrote a tennis encyclopedia and a history of the game, all while remaining one of the most congenial people anyone met courtside or in the press box."
   The 37-year-old Bryan twins defeated captain Lleyton Hewitt and John Peers 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3 on grass at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, the former home of the Australian Open, in Melbourne.
   Hewitt, a two-time Davis Cup champion, turned 35 on Feb. 24. He came out of a 41-day retirement to replace Nick Kyrgios, bedridden with a virus, but did not play singles on Thursday.
   John Isner will try to clinch the best-of-five-match competition for the United States against Bernard Tomic in Saturday's first encounter. Then Jack Sock of the United States is scheduled to play Sam Groth, who holds the unofficial record with a 163.7-mph (263.4-kph) serve in the 2012 Busan (South Korea) Challenger.
   Hewitt, who was ranked No. 1 in singles from 2001 to 2003, could substitute for the 77th-ranked Groth.
   Hewitt won the singles title in the now-defunct San Jose (Calif.) tournament on the ATP World Tour in 2002 and reached the 2006 final there.
   WTA tour in Monterrey, Mexico -- Another former Stanford All-American, Nicole Gibbs, lost to 20-year-old Estonian Anett Kontaveit 6-1, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the Abierto Monterrey Afirme.
   Gibbs, a 23-year-old qualifier from Marina del Rey in the Los Angeles area, was playing in her second career WTA quarterfinal. She also reached the last eight as a qualifier in Seoul in September 2014.
   In today's doubles semifinals, Petra Martic of Croatia and Modesto product Maria Sanchez will face fourth-seeded Maria Irigoyen of Argentina and Paula Kania of Poland.
   The winners will play top-seeded Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain. Medina Garrigues was named the co-Female MVP of World TeamTennis while playing for the Sacramento-based California Dream last July. The team folded in January.
   Pacific Coast Men's Doubles in La Jolla, Calif. -- Two Stanford and two Cal teams reached the round of 16.
   Advancing were No. 3 seeds Tom Fawcett and Maciek Romanowicz of Stanford, No. 6 Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat of Cal, No. 14 Andre Goransson and William Griffith of Cal and No. 15 Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski of Stanford.  
   Also moving into the last 16 were No. 7 seeds Tyler Browne of Walnut Creek and J.T. Nishimura of Cal.