In the draw as a wild card, Andy Murray of Great Britain beat Japan’s Taro Daniel 6-2, 6-2 on Tuesday in the first round of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Monday in Doha, Qatar.
Murray won 25 of 28 first-hand points (89 percent), hit four aces and broke Daniels’ serve five of 11 times. He will face No. 2 seed Roberto Bautista Agut from Spain in the next round.
Nr. 7-seed Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan won 6-2, 6-4 over Jozef Kovalik from Slovakia, while Hungarian Marton Fucsovics defeated No. 8 seed Lloyd Harris from South Africa 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Other winners on Tuesday were Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori, Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, France’s Arthur Rinderknech and Swedish lucky loser Elias Ymer.
Open 13 Provence
In a duel with two French wild cards, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga crossed past Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-2 in the first round in Marseille, France.
Tsonga, 36, was once ranked as high as number 5 in the world but was in 247th place this week. He had an 11-2 advantage in aces over Simon, converted three of five break points and did not have his own serve broken.
Russia’s Roman Safiullin disrupted Australia’s number 7 Alexei Popyrin in a two-hour, 40-minute marathon, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (3). Safiullin hit 13 aces, saved four of five break points and took advantage of Popyrin’s nine double errors.
Also advanced were Moldova’s Radu Albot, Denmark’s Holger Rune, the Czech Republic’s Tomas Machac and the Frenchmen Hugo Gaston and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
–Field Level Media
Source: sn.dk