Jordan Thompson made good use of a wild card at the 2017 Sydney International, winning his first-round match before falling in a battle against the fifth seed.
Italian veteran Paolo Lorenzi had no intention of letting the home favourite advance to the second round this year. The 36-year-old defeated Thompson 7-6(5), 6-4 to set up a second-round match against top seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
The World No. 43 was broken in his first service game and faced a break point in his second, but steadied the ship from there. After claiming an intense first-set tie-break, the right-hander sprinted to a 3-0 lead in the second set. Despite failing to serve out the match at 5-3, Lorenzi broke his opponent a third time to clinch the victory.
If that was complicated, few words could describe Alexandr Dolgopolov’s 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-5 first-round win against two-time tournament winner Viktor Troicki, who claimed the title in New Zealand in 2015 and 2016.
The Ukrainian held match point at 6/5 in the second-set tie-break, but could not convert and he was soon behind a break at 2-3 in the third set. But Dolgopolov managed to get right back on serve and after saving break point at 4-4, he broke for the triumph at 6-5 to end the two-hour, 21-minute clash and set up a meeting against fourth seed Fabio Fognini.
The only seed in action on the first day of play was seventh seed Damir Dzumhur. The Bosnian got back on track after a season-opening loss at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, eliminating Jan-Lennard Struff 6-1, 6-4. Dzumhur will play the winner of Fernando Verdasco and Alex de Minaur, fresh off his dream run to the Brisbane semi-finals.
Sunday also featured the final day of qualifying, with four players punching their tickets to the main draw. Russians Daniil Medvedev and Evgeny Donskoy did not drop a set in their qualifying campaigns and will join Aussies Alexei Popyrin and Aleksandar Vukic in the field of 28.
Popyrin, age 18, and Vukic, 21, will make their ATP World Tour debuts in Sydney. Popyrin, the reigning junior champ at Roland Garros, will open against countryman John Millman. Vukic, a former standout at the University of Illinois, faces Feliciano Lopez.
