Top seed Marin Cilic barely put a foot wrong on Thursday to advance to the Tata Open Maharashtra semi-finals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over eighth-seeded Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert in 64 minutes. The Croatian lost just one of his first service points (23/24) and struck seven aces as he continued his bid to win a third title on Indian soil, following victories in 2009 and 2010, when the ATP World Tour 250 tournament was held in Chennai. Cilic will next challenge France’s Gilles Simon, who was a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Spanish qualifier Ricardo Ojeda Lara. [ALSO LIKE] In other action, second-seeded South African Kevin Anderson was dominant on serve, hitting 24 aces and saving five of six break points,...
Britain’s Kyle Edmund is through to the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp quarter-finals after a 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-4 win over #NextGenATP champion Hyeon Chung on Thursday. Edmund snapped the six-match winning streak of his opponent in two hours and 38 minutes to reach the quarter-finals in Brisbane for a second consecutive year. The British No. 2 looked to be on top in the opening stages, creating three break point opportunities in the sixth game, but Chung stormed back to hold serve before taking a 3/1 lead in the first set tie-break. Not to be disheartened, Edmund rallied, reeling off six consecutive points to snatch the set away from the 21-year-old. Despite finding himself 1-3 down in the second set, the...
They changed sports and surfaces, switching from a football pitch to a tennis court. But on Wednesday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, the outcome was the same when Dominic Thiem and Aljaz Bedene faced off in the second round in Doha. As Thiem's football team did during the off-season, the Austrian outplayed the Slovenian, advancing to the quarter-finals of his first tournament of the 2018 season, 7-5, 6-4. Thiem had plenty of opportunities in the early-evening match, earning 15 break points, including 10 in the second set, against Bedene, who now plays for Slovenia after switching from Great Britain last month. But Thiem converted only three of those break-point opportunities. Still, he was pleased to improve to 2-0 in their...
World No. 6 Marin Cilic got his 2018 ATP World Tour season off to a smooth start with a 6-4, 6-3 win over wild card Ramkumar Ramanathan on an action-packed day at the Tata Open Maharashtra. The two-time winner looked in control for the majority of the first set, recovering from a serving hiccup at 5-3 with an immediate break back to clinch the first set 6-4. Cilic went from strength to strength in the second set, dropping just seven points across five service games on his way to sealing a quarter-final spot after 72 minutes. However, the same could not be said for Roberto Bautista Agut as the World No. 20 fell in his season opener to French veteran...
#NextGenATP contender Alex de Minaur continued his impressive start to the season with a stunning 6-4, 6-4 upset win over fourth seed Milos Raonic at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp on Wednesday. The 18-year-old Australian backed up his first round win over Steve Johnson in impressive style to topple 2016 champion Raonic in one hour and 34 minutes. Describing the win as a ‘tremendous high’, de Minaur pointed to his levels of self-belief as a key factor in pulling off such a great win. [ALSO LIKE] “You've got to into every match believing that you can win,” said de Minaur. “I just go out to every match the same, trying to play my game and leave it all out...
