Nothing quite like returning home to make you feel good, is there? Swiss Stan Wawrinka reached his fourth consecutive Banque Eric Sturdza Geneva Open quarter-final on Wednesday, beating American Jared Donaldson 6-3, 6-4 in 68 minutes. [ALSO LIKE] Wawrinka, who endured two knee surgeries last August, controlled the second-round contest, never facing a break point and twice breaking Donaldson, who reached his maiden ATP World Tour semi-final in March (l. to Anderson) at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC, an ATP World Tour 500 event. “I'm happy with my match today. I felt good out there. This will be the first time in a while that I play back-to-back matches. I like to play in front of the Swiss...
#NextGenATP American Taylor Fritz picked up his second win of the season against compatriot Jack Sock, No. 15 in the ATP Rankings, to reach the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Lyon quarter-finals on Wednesday. Fritz hit eight aces and swept the third-seeded Sock 7-6(6), 6-2 in 92 minutes. The 20-year-old Fritz also beat Sock at the clay-court Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship last month en route to his second ATP World Tour semi-final. Fritz is in fourth place in the ATP Race To Milan, which will determine seven of the eight players who compete at the Next Gen ATP Finals, to be held 6-10 November in Milan. The eighth player will be determined by an all-Italian qualifying tournament. Fritz will look to reach...
#NextGenATP American Reilly Opelka moved to within two wins of qualifying for Roland Garros for the first time on Tuesday. The 20-year-old right-hander beat Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor 7-5, 6-3 to advance to the second round of qualifying. Opelka won his first clay-court title on Sunday at the BNP Paribas Primrose, an ATP Challenger Tour tournament in Bordeaux, France. He lost in the final round of Roland Garros qualifying last year. The 6'10” Opelka will next meet 25-year-old Jozef Kovalik of Slovakia, who beat 30th seed Alexey Vatutin of Russia 2-6, 6-1, 6-3. [ALSO LIKE] Latvian Ernests Gulbis, who beat Roger Federer en route to the 2014 Roland Garros semi-finals (l. to Djokovic), also advanced on a rain-shortened day of qualifying...
Houston champion Steve Johnson avoided the upset bug on Tuesday, a day filled with them at the Banque Eric Sturdza Geneva Open. The sixth-seeded American beat Romanian Marius Copil 7-6(4), 6-3. Johnson hit 11 aces and escaped danger regularly on his serve, saving eight of nine break points. Johnson will face Czech right-hander Lukas Rosol in the second round. Rosol saved two match points to beat countryman Jiri Vesely 2-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(4). The 32-year-old trailed by a set and 4/6 in the second-set tie-break before rallying to victory in two hours and 15 minutes. German Peter Gojowczyk picked up his 15th win of the season by beating fourth seed David Ferrer 6-2, 6-4. Gojowczyk hit eight aces and saved both break...
Dominic Thiem notched his 26th victory of the season on Tuesday to start his Open Parc Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Lyon. The top-seeded Thiem beat Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena, Ecuador Open titlist, 6-2, 6-4 in 71 minutes. [ALSO LIKE] Thiem won 80 per cent of his service points and didn't face a break point in the second-round matchup. The Austrian and nine-time ATP World Tour champion will next meet another Spaniard in Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who beat France's Calvin Hemery 7-6(4), 6-3 to reach his third tour-level quarter-final of the season. Garcia-Lopez, who also reached quarter-finals on clay in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, won 81 per cent of service points and saved all three break points faced to advance. Slovakian qualifier Filip Horansky...
