Google News ATP RIO & DELRAY BEACH: Ruud scores first ATP win. Edmund, Fritz, Querrey are all through. Early exit for Cuevas.
by JOVICA ILIC
ATP 500 Rio de Janeiro (Outdoor Clay) : The second ATP 500 tournament of the season delivered some interesting result on the opening day of the competition, with defending champion Pablo Cuevas and the 8th seed Joao Sousa are both beaten.
Playing in his 3rd ATP tournament, 18-year-old Casper Ruud defeated Rogerio Dura Silva 6-3 6-4 in an hour and 25 minutes for his first ATP victory, never facing a break point and breaking his rival in the 6th game of the first and the 5th game of the second set.
Qualifier Roberto Carballes Baena made a big surprise by taking out the 8th seed Joao Sousa 6-3 6-1 in just 66 minutes. In one of his best matches ever, Roberto dropped only 4 points behind his serve and he was impressive on the return as well, taking 50% of the points on Sousa's serve and breaking him 4 times from 7 chances, twice in each set.
Arthur De Greef, ranked 138th, needed 2 hours and 14 minutes to dismiss the 3rd seed and the defending champion Pablo Cuevas by 3-6 6-3 7-5 for his second ATP win of the season. It was a very close match, with only a few games that went to deuce and with just 3 breaks of serve, but it was Belgian who saved a break point in the 11th game of the third set to break Cuevas in the next game for the win, despite 3 game points for Pablo in that last game.
First round results: [WC]Casper Ruud (NOR) vs Rogerio Dutra Silva (BRA) 6-3 6-4
[Q]Roberto Carballes Baena (ESP) vs [8]Joao Sousa (POR) 6-3 6-1
[Q]Nicolas Kicker (ARG) vs [Q]Marco Cecchinato (ITA) 7-5 6-0
[Q]Arthur De Greef (BEL) vs [3]Pablo Cuevas (URU) 6-3 3-6 7-5
Diego Schwartzman (ARG) vs Renzo Olivo (ARG) 6-2 3-6 6-4
Dusan Lajovic (SRB) vs Facundo Bagnis (ARG) 6-4 6-4
ATP 250 Delray Beack (Outdoor Hard) : Taylor Fritz scored a 6-4 6-4 triumph over his coeval Akira Santillan, who participated in his 3rd ATP event in a career. Fritz lost his serve only once, despite having just 4 aces, and he converted 3 break chances to control the result all the time, as they came in the early phase of both sets.
The 8th seed Kyle Edmund was too strong for Adrian Mannarino (8th straight loss for Mannarino on the ATP Tour), steaming past by 6-3 6-0. It was a decent effort from Mannarino in the first set when he got broken just once, but he faded from the court in set number 2, winning just 12 points which weren't enough for at least one game.
First round results: Yen-Hsun LU (TPE) vs Bjorn Fratangelo (USA) 4-6 7-5 6-4
[8]Kyle Edmumd (GBR) vs Adrian Mannarino (FRA) 6-3 6-0
[4/WC]Sam Querrey (USA) vs Dudi Sela (ISR) 6-2 2-1 Ret.
Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN) vs [Q]Kimmer Coppejans (BEL) 6-3 6-3
Taylor Fritz (USA) vs [Q]Akira Santillan (JPN) 6-4 6-4 ALSO READ: ATP MARSEILLE: Youzhny edges Tsitsipas, Jaziri and Simon are also through