Lacko and De Minaur Secure Second Round Berths at BB&T Atlanta Open
Steen Kirby, Tennis Atlantic
The night session was partially cancelled due to rain, but 2 (and a half) matches still completed on day 1 of the main draw at the BB&T Atlanta Open 2018.
For over 2 hours Alex De Minaur battled with lucky loser Hubert Hurkacz of Poland. Despite having played over the weekend in qualifying, Hurkacz came out as the fresher player roaring past De Minaur 6-1 in the first set. From there ADM steeled himself and stepped up in a big way though, battling past the Pole in consecutive tiebreaks to win the match 1-6 7-6 7-6, in the end coming back from a set and a break down to win.
Embed from Getty ImagesDe Minaur was strong on second serve despite generating fewer chances on return, breaks were traded early in set 2 and Hurkacz saved a set point to force a tiebreak that De Minaur dominated to force a third. Hurkacz was pressed hard in the third set, nearly getting broken early, and getting broken to let the Australian young gun serve for the match. Hurkacz broke back to continue the action but a closer third set tiebreak saw De Minaur squeak it 7-5. Next for ADM is defending champion John Isner.
Lukas Lacko had a far easier time against qualifier Prajnesh Gunneswaran. The Slovak veteran enjoyed one way traffic in his first match of the tournament prevailing 6-2 6-2 in less than an hour. The errors started early and often off the Gunneswaran racquet as he went 4-0 down and never truly regained his foothold in the match.
In the third match of the day Ivo Karlovic was well on his way to (most likely) wrapping things up in straight sets against Donald Young until the rain came. Karlovic was up 6-2 5-5 as Young played a poor first set. DY recovered a bit in the second to keep things on an even keel, but Karlovic’s serve continued to trouble him. The match will conclude tomorrow.
Tuesday’s singles action features a multitude of matches. Chardy vs. Berankis and Norrie vs. Jaziri start the day. The Ryan Harrison vs. James Duckworth contest that was scratched on Monday due to rain will follow along with Ramanathan vs. Fritz.
The Karlovic and Young match will conclude third on stadium, with Copil vs. Tiafoe, and Youhzny vs Reinberg the remaining singles matches on Stadium. On grandstand it will be Kokkinakis vs. Rubin and Smyczek vs. Zverev with Bolt vs. Baghdatis the late match. Two doubles matches will also take place tomorrow.
The doubles results today saw Bambridge/O’Mara, Raja/Skupski, and Monroe/Smith advance.
