Ancic withdraws from Olympic tennis tournament

BEIJING – Mario Ancic of Croatia withdrew from the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday, and Canadian players Frank Dancevic and Frederic Niemeyer were both added to the men's draw. Niemeyer replaced the 25th-ranked Ancic, while Dancevic replaced Denis Gremelmayr of Germany. Rainer Schuettler of Germany, who got his spot in Beijing by winning an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, replaced Dudi Sela of Israel in the draw. Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, who withdrew last week, was replaced by Jiri Vanek of the Czech Republic. The Olympic tennis tournament starts Sunday, two days after the opening ceremony, and will finish Aug. 17. The ITF used the ATP and WTA rankings as a guide to determine who gets the 56 direct spots in the men's and women's singles competitions. Six of the remaining eight spots in each tournament were given out by the ITF's Olympic Committee. – AP