Fritz, #NextGenATP Americans Claim Miami Openers
Fritz, #NextGenATP Americans Claim Miami Openers
A trio of #NextGenATP Americans celebrated their first wins at the Miami Open presented by Itau on Wednesday. Taylor Fritz beat Czech Adam Pavlasek 6-2, 6-3 on Stadium Court. Fritz lost only three points on his first serve (17/20) in the 67-minute opener.
The 19-year-old right-hander will face 26th seed Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round. Fritz, the 2016 ATP Star Of Tomorrow presented by Emirates, will try to build off his third-round showing last week at the BNP Paribas Open, during which he earned his first Top 10 win against then-No. 7 Marin Cilic in the second round.
Twenty-year-old Jared Donaldson came back to erase three match points and advance past Brit Kyle Edmund 2-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 in two hours and 23 minutes. Donaldson was serving 0/40, 4-5 in the second set but won three consecutive points and eventually took the set to even the match.
In the decider, Donaldson cruised, breaking the 22-year-old Edmund twice and never facing a break point. The win marks Donaldson’s third in as many days after he qualified for the Masters 1000 tournament. The Rhode Island native will next meet 28th seed Mischa Zverev of Germany.
Fellow qualifier Ernesto Escobedo also weathered a three-set contest to beat World No. 43 Daniel Evans 7-5, 0-6, 6-3. Escobedo saved both break points faced in the third set and will face 25th seed Fernando Verdasco in the second round.
In other action, South African Kevin Anderson set-up a second-round contest with No. 2 seed Kei Nishikori after beating Serbian qualifier Dusan Lajovic 6-2, 7-5. Nishikori leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 2-1, but Anderson won their last meeting, at the 2015 Shanghai Rolex Masters.
Tommy Haas continued his comeback tour but came up just short. The 38-year-old Haas lost to Czech Jiri Vesely 6-7(5), 6-3, 7-5 in two hours and 36 minutes. Haas falls to 0-3 on the year, after retiring from his first-round match at the Australian Open and losing in the first round of the Delray Beach Open.
“The mindset obviously was to go out there, compete as hard as I can, and try to win the match, just like every other time, and I came close. It’s one of those matches, again, this is only my third match of the year, so the year has been very different for me from a professional athlete point of view,” Haas said. “It’s frustrating to lose those kinds of matches. I would love to get over the hump. At the same time, everyone is out there to compete, and it came down to a few points here and there.”