Sports Briefs

Ja drub British Virgin Islands

TORTOLA (CMC):

Jamaica defeated hosts the British Virgin Islands 61-28 on day three of the women's Caribbean Basketball Championship here Wednesday.

Results: Barbados def Guyana 81-61; Bahamas def Antigua and Barbuda 74-39.

US Virgin Islands def St Vincent & the Grenadines 62-29 and Jamaica def British Virgin Islands 61-28.

Hard work

for Nadal

STUTTGART, Germany (AP):

Top-seeded Rafael Nadal opened his grass-court season with a hard-earned three-set victory over Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus at the Mercedes Cup yesterday.

The Spaniard needed two hours, 40 minutes to win 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 6-2 and book a place in the quarter-finals.

Nadal had a bye into the second round. He will next face fifth-seeded Bernard Tomic, who cut short the comeback of German veteran Tommy Haas with a 7-6 (6), 6-2 victory.

German qualifier Mischa Zverev continued his good run, beating Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-2, 6-4 for a place in the last eight. Zverev will face second-seeded Marin Cilic, the US Open champion, who beat Matthias Bachinger of Germany 7-6 (2), 6-3.

Radwanska advances

NOTTINGHAM, England (AP):

Former Wimbledon finalist Agnieszka Radwanska dropped just four games against Christina McHale yesterday to advance to the quarter-finals of the grass-court Nottingham Open, where she will meet another American.

The top-seeded Radwanska won 6-3, 6-1 in the second round of the Wimbledon warm-up tournament and next plays Lauren Davis.