MARSEILLE, France -- Top-seeded Richard Gasquet and defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga both reached the Open 13 quarterfinals with straight-sets wins on Wednesday. After the second-seeded Tsonga beat Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), his French countryman Gasquet followed up with a 6-3, 6-3 win against Slovenias Blaz Kavcic. Gasquet did not face a single break-point and took his opponents serve three times. Earlier, the second-seeded Tsonga, who had 19 aces, improved to 4-2 in career head-to-heads against the Russian who reached a career-high ranking of third. Davydenko saved one match point with a forehand pass down the line, but Tsonga clinched victory with the next when Davydenkos forehand hit the net. "Its never easy against him, hes a great player whos won a lot of titles," the 28-year-old Tsonga said. "Im trying to get my bearings again, which is why I was so happy to win." Tsonga next plays either sixth-seeded Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France or Ukraines Sergiy Stakhovsky, while Gasquets quarterfinal opponent is either fifth-seeded Ivan Dodig of Croatia or Germanys Tobias Kamke. "I didnt play well last time (in Rotterdam). But you shouldnt forget that, and use the experience," said Tsonga, referring to his straight-sets loss to Croat Marin Cilic in the second round of the ABN Amro tournament. "I absolutely must raise my level." In the remaining first-round matches on Wednesday, there were wins for seventh-seeded Julien Benneteau of France, No. 8 Nicolas Mahut of France, Spains Roberto Bautista Agut, Germanys Jan-Lennard Struff, Frenchman Michael Llodra and Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania. Benneteau of France won 6-1, 6-4 against Jesse Huta Galung; Mahut beat Kenny De Schepper 7-6 (2), 6-3; Struff beat David Guez 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; Bautista Agut won 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 against Dustin Brown; Llodra downed Lukas Lacko 6-3, 7-6 (2), and Berankis led 6-5 when Jan Hajek retired. Pittsburgh Pirates Gear .Y. -- Mike Zigomaniss goal at 5:53 of the third period stood up as the winner as the Rochester Americans hung on to defeat the visiting Hamilton Bulldogs 3-2 on Saturday in American Hockey League action. Pittsburgh Pirates Store . Five straight losses (and six in the past seven) now dot the schedule – matching their longest skid of the year – after they fell again in New Jersey on Sunday night, topped 3-2 by Cory Schneider and the Devils. https://www.cheappiratesjerseys.us/.com) - Devon Johnson ran for a school record 272 yards with four touchdowns and No. Stitched Pirates Jerseys . The team announced the defensive coordinator will not be offered a contract extension. Cheap Pirates Jerseys . He will play 10th-seeded Feliciano Lopez in Sundays final, after the Spanish left-hander defeated Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic 7-6 (7), 6-4.CALGARY -- John Kuceras career was shorter than he wanted but he leaves alpine ski racing knowing he achieved two firsts for Canada. The first Canadian man to win a world downhill championship and the Canadian skier to stand atop the World Cup podium in Lake Louise, Alta., announced his retirement from ski racing Thursday. Kucera won the mens downhill title in Val-dIsere, France, in 2009. He earned three career World Cup medals in super-G, including gold in Lake Louise in 2006. Im just really proud I managed to take a very short career and do big things with it, the 29-year-old Calgarian said at Alpine Canadas headquarters in his hometown. It was a great ride. It really was. I did some things in this country that I was the first to do and Im really proud of that. Kuceras first four years on the national team were successful and promising. But a broken leg followed by a frustrating inner ear condition sidelined him for four of the last five seasons and also kept him from competing in two Winter Olympics. Vestibular neuritis -- an inner ear condition causing dizziness and nausea -- struck during a training camp in Chile last September and made it impossible to race through gates at 130 kilometres per hour. Kucera wasnt able to get back on skis to race at the Winter Games in Sochi in February. The symptoms still linger and the uncertainty over how long theyll remain, combined with an opportunity to join the coaching staff of the national development team, steered Kucera towards retirement. Truth be told, Im not 100 per cent yet, he said. I think my body just told me it was time to start doing something else. This vestibular neuritis is tough because there is no time line. I could be good by July, but I could be good by next July and really, nobody can give me that answer. Who wouldve thought the thing that would have finally took me out was waking up dizzy one morning? Super giant slalom, or super-G, is shorter than downhill but there are more gates on the course. The discipline requires a combination of speed and technical ability. At five foot nine and 185 pounds, Kucera wasnt as beefy as the top downhill racers early in his career, so he excelled in super-G. But on Feb. 7, 2009, he bested such heavyweights as Hermann Maier of Austria, Didier Cuche of Switzerland, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and American Bode Miller to win on Val-dIseres difficult slope. Val-dIsere was a course that obviously played into a lot of my strengths, very technical, very steep, Kucera recalled. That being said, I felt like every year I was becoming a better and better downhiller. I just hit the right track, the right conditions and the right time of my career to become a champion there. Kucera was the first CCanadian to win in 26 years of World Cup racing at Lake Louise when he captured super-G gold in 2006.dddddddddddd. He drew the No. 1 start bib, so after crossing the finish line, the 22-year-old stood nervously in front of television cameras watching as skier after skier came down the mountain. I remember being really cold. I think it was -35 C that day, Kucera said. Coming down, having that great run, freezing, watching a lot of the people I looked up to growing up and me beating them, it was pretty exciting. Kucera dedicated that victory to his former coach and friend, Jason Lapierre, who was hit by a car while biking and died earlier that year. Kuceras successes coincided with those of teammates Erik Guay, Manny Osborne-Paradis and Jan Hudec. The Canadian Cowboys have given the national mens downhill team depth it hasnt had since Steve Podborski and Ken Read headlined the Crazy Canucks of the 1980s. Guay won the mens downhill title again for Canada in 2011, while Hudec took silver in 2007. Guay passed Podborski as Canadas most decorated World Cup racer with 22 career medals. Guay also won the overall super-G title in 2010. Osborne-Paradis collected nine World Cup medals, including three gold, between 2006 and 2010. Hudec tied for third and won Olympic bronze in super-G in Sochi. As a group, now with Jans medal at the Olympics, weve really done it all, Kucera said. The only thing I guess you could say we havent done is we dont have an Olympic champion yet. As a group, we pulled off some special things. Weve kind of superceded the Crazy Canuck era and did something great. Weve set the bar pretty high for the next group coming up, but I think thats where it needs to be. Kucera won two World Cup medals at Lake Louise -- he took silver there in 2008 -- but the mountain was disastrous for him in the first race of 2009-10. He badly broke his left leg in the super-G and erased his chance to race in Whistler, B.C., at the 2010 Winter Games. Rehabilitation and subsequent setbacks kept him off his race skis for the next three seasons. Obviously the last four years hadnt gone exactly gone the way I would have liked them to, but that being said, I felt the time was right to step away now, Kucera said. Ive had a good run as an athlete. Im walking away relatively healthy. Thats a good thing. Im excited and passionate about the next group, the guys Im going to be working with because Im going to be working with a pretty exciting group of 17- to 19-year-olds. Kuceras parents, Jan and Zdena, emigrated to Canada from the former Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s before John was born. Jan worked with the ski patrol at nearby Nakiska. John and his brother James began skiing at an early age. ' ' '