Top seed Milos Raonic marked his Delray Beach Open debut in emphatic style with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Tim Smyczek on Tuesday. The World No. 4 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, back in action after a quarter-final showing at the Australian Open, needed just 24 minutes to clinch the opening set against the American qualifier. Smyczek reached the quarter-finals at Delray Beach in 2016, but his challenge looked to be fading when Raonic saved four break points at the start of set two. The Canadian struck 10 aces and won 90 per cent of points off first serves. He secured the decisive break in the ninth game to book a second-round encounter with #NextGenATP player Borna Coric. The Croatian...
Watch Tuesday highlights of how Thomaz Bellucci got the better of Kei Nishikori at the Rio Open presented by Claro, plus Alexandr Dolgopolov versus David Ferrer. Watch live tennis at tennistv.com. Photo: Joao Pires/Fotojump
It started out with so much promise. A Twitter post. More than 200 retweets and 700-plus favourites. Catchy nicknames with hashtags to boot: #KevJuan, #AnderDelpo, #DelPAnderson. But, in the end, the powerful combination of Juan Martin del Potro and Kevin Anderson met some unfortunate luck when they tried to make their doubles team debut last October at the If Stockholm Open. Anderson, who dealt with injuries all last season, had to retire from their first-round match after 10 games because of an adductor strain. “Unfortunately that was right when my hip was getting sore and we couldn't finish the match. Nothing really took off. I think we maybe needed to play a few more matches to gain any traction,” Anderson...
Watch Gastao Elias execute a controlled and pin-point accurate winner past Thiago Monteiro on Tuesday at the Rio Open presented by Claro. Watch live tennis at tennistv.com. Photo: Joao Pires/Fotojump