Marin Cilic won the Western and Southern Open over Andy Murray and consequently became the youngest man now playing tennis to win a Masters 1000 title, which is somewhat remarkable given that he is close to 28 years old.
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The Scotsman had two match points, but he couldn’t convert them as he did his first double fault of the match to force a deuce. Both players remained steady as Raonic held to be three games all, followed by another solid hold from the Scotsman that ended up in an incredible point when the top seed hit an impressive passing shot to be 4-3.
“Elbow, shoulder”, said Nadal of the quick turn around from Rio to Cincinnati.
Johnson will take on unseeded Dimitrov, while Croatian teenager Coric tests his skills against his countryman Marin Cilic, a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victor over Tomas Berdych in the late-night match at the Lindner Family Tennis Center.
The 25-year-old finished with 32 winners, while Thiem, with four 2016 titles, managed only 10 winners and failed on two break point chances.
The match began Tuesday night but was held up several times due to rain before being postponed late in the evening.
Next up for Coric is the victor of the match between sixth seed Tomas Berdych and 12th-seeded Marin Cilic. I played a lot of tennis the last few weeks.
“But I went to sleep around 4:00 and woke up a little bit before 11:00. So I’m very happy”.
Milos Raonic – the fourth seed – will face the Japanese qualifier Yuichi Sugita in the third round after beating home hope John Isner 7-6 (7/5) 7-6 (7/5).
Seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France enjoyed his own double tiebreaker win over American Reilly Opelka 7-6 (5) 7-6 (3).
The Australian’s countryman, Nick Kygrios, was not as fortunate, with the 14th seed suffering a 7-6 (7/2), 4-6, 7-6 (8/6) loss to Borna Coric. Like everyone says, it’s tough, the first match of the tournament.
“I need to play to go through that process”, he continued.
Third seed and 2015 finalist Simona Halep started with a 6-3, 6-1 defeat of Annika Beck. Mentally I’m in a good place just now.
“I got a wildcard here when I was 18”.
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With the win, Murray maintained his unbeaten head-to-head record against the world number 21, now at 5-0.
