Milos Raonic wasted little energy on Tuesday during his Australian Open first-round contest, beating "Hot Shot Machine" Dustin Brown of Germany 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
”It's obviously tough to have necessarily a solid performance all the way through, but I did what I needed to,” said Raonic. “I took care of my serve. I broke quite early in all the sets. I just dropped off a little bit where I faced a few sort of dangers on my service games in the beginning of the third, end of the second. I returned pretty solid when I had to. I stepped up, and I played well.”
The third-seeded Raonic continued his attacking style, which has gained new emphasis under coach Richard Krajicek. Raonic won 73 per cent of his net points (19/26). More importantly, he erased all three break points faced during the one-hour and 32-minute win.
Raonic reached the semi-finals in Melbourne a year ago and led runner-up Andy Murray two sets to one before losing in five sets. The 26-year-old Raonic will next meet Gilles Muller, who won his first ATP World Tour title on Saturday at the Apia International Sydney (d. Evans), after he hit 30 aces to defeat #NextGenATP Taylor Fritz 7-6(8), 7-6(5), 6-3.
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Eighth seed Dominic Thiem converted five of his 19 break point opportunities to overcome Jan-Lennard Struff 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in two hours and 54 minutes. He now challenges Jordan Thompson, who fought back from an 0-2 sets deficit to beat World No. 37 and last week’s ASB Classic runner-up Joao Sousa 6-7(2), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1.
Benoit Paire lead former World No. 2 Tommy Haas 7-6(2), 6-4, when his German opponent – a three-time semi-finalist at Melbourne Park – retired due to fatigue. Haas, 38, has undergone 15 surgeries in a 20-year professional career, which includes being the 2004 and 2012 ATP World Tour’s Comeback Player of the Year awards recipient. Paire advanced to play Fabio Fognini, a straight sets victor over No. 28 seed Feliciano Lopez.
David Goffin, the No. 11 seed, battled to knock out big-serving qualifier Reilly Opelka, who was making his Grand Slam championship debut, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in just under three hours. He’ll next play another qualifier, 38-year-old Radek Stepanek, in the second round.