Clad in Great Britain’s red, white and blue, 2012 gold medalist Andy Murray picked up where he left off in London, prevailing past Serbian Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-2 to start his Rio Olympics.

Murray, No. 2 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, improved to 8-0 against Troicki, World No. 35. The top Brit pressured Troicki throughout the first-round match, seeing 10 break points and converting four of them. Murray also extended rallies with the No. 2 Serbian, who finished with 40 unforced errors to 11 winners.

Murray, the second seed in Rio, will next face Argentine Juan Monaco, who beat Mirza Basic of Bosnia & Herzegovina 6-2, 6-2. Murray leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 3-2, including the last time they played, on the hard courts at the 2014 Shenzhen Open.

Rafael Nadal, 2008 gold medalist in Beijing, dropped only three games in his return to the Olympics, winning 6-2, 6-1 against Argentine Federico Delbonis. The third seed won 63 per cent of his service points and was almost equally as effective as a returner, winning 59 per cent of Delbonis’ service points.

“I’m very happy,” Nadal said on NBC. “It’s important for me to play well again and it was an unbelievable start. I played well mentally with strong concentration all match.”

Nadal will face Italy’s Andreas Seppi in the second round. The Spaniard leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 6-1. “Seppi is a very tough player,” Nadal said. “He can play very well on all surfaces with great control from the baseline. I have to change the rhythm of the match to have success.”

Nadal’s compatriot seventh seed David Ferrer opened his third Olympics with a 6-2, 6-1 win against Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin. The 34-year-old Ferrer, No. 12 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, hit five aces and was particularly effective attacking Istomin, winning 12/14 net points.

Ferrer will face Russian Evgeny Donskoy in the second round. Ferrer won their only previous FedEx ATP Head2Head match-up, a 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 sweep at Roland Garros earlier this season.

Home favourite Thomaz Bellucci advanced to the second round when German Dustin Brown retired because of a left ankle injury up 6-4, 4-5. The Brazilian will face 11^th seed Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay or Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia. Bellucci’s countryman Rogerio Dutra Silva prevailed against Thomas Fabbiano of Italy 7-6(4), 6-1. Dutra Silva will face Frenchman Gael Monfils.

Tenth seed Roberto Bautista Agut, playing in his first Olympics, advanced 6-7(4), 6-2 when Russian Andrey Kuznetsov retired. Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller saved two match points in the third set tie-break to beat Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(10).

Abierto Mexicano Los Cabos (Los Cabos): The second of two Mexican tournaments on the ATP World Tour, the Abierto Mexicano Los Cabos, features nine of the Top 50 players in the Emirates ATP Rankings. The other stop is in Acapulco. The first-year tournament is led by No. 19 Feliciano Lopez and No. 20 Bernard Tomic. The other seeds are: Ivo Karlovic, Sam Querrey, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Jeremy Chardy, Nicolas Almagro and Marcel Granollers.

Feliciano Top Seed: Lopez is the top seed for the second straight tournament. Last month in Gstaad, the 34-year-old Spaniard came in as the No. 1 seed and won his fifth career ATP World Tour title (d. Haase), the first on clay. Lopez comes in with a 21-16 match record on the season (8-6 on hard). In addition to his title, Lopez advanced to the semi-finals in Dubai and Houston.

Tomic Back in Mexico: Tomic is the No. 2 seed and in February the 23-year-old Aussie advanced to his first ATP World Tour 500 level final in Acapulco (l. to Thiem). Tomic comes in with a 25-18 match record on the season (15-8 on hard). He also advanced to the semi-finals in Brisbane and The Queen’s Club in London.

Ivo Going Strong: Karlovic is the No. 3 seed and the 37-year-old Croat is the oldest player in the Top 100 Emirates ATP Rankings at No. 26. Last month, Karlovic captured his seventh ATP World Tour title in Newport (d. Muller) and he followed with a runner-up in Washington (l. to Monfils). He also reached the third round at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Toronto (l. to Dimitrov). Karlovic was bothered by a knee injury in the first three months of the year, starting 2-9. Since the beginning of Roland Garros, Karlovic has compiled a 16-6 record, winning at least one match in his last seven events.

Spaniards Lead the Way: There are a tournament-high six Spaniards in the main draw, including seeds (1) Lopez, (7) Almagro and (8) Granollers. Three of the six Spaniards to win an ATP World Tour title this season are also in the draw: Almagro, Lopez and Fernando Verdasco.

Reilly on the Rise: American teenager Reilly Opelka, who advanced to his first career ATP World Tour semi-final in Atlanta (l. to Isner in three sets) in just his third ATP tournament, is a special exempt entry into Los Cabos. The 18-year-old from Palm Coast, Florida came into Atlanta ranked No. 837 and he is expected to break into the Top 400 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on Monday at around No. 387.

Local Wild Cards: Two of the three wild cards are the top two Mexican players in the Emirates ATP Rankings: No. 530 Lucas Gomez and No. 567 Tigre Hank. Both players are trying to win their first career ATP World Tour match. They are both 1-7 at tour-level, with their lone wins coming in Davis Cup play.

Doubles Draw: The top seeds in the tournament are Marcel Granollers and F. Lopez, who are teaming together for the first time since the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Indian Wells in 2011. Other seeds are: Robert Lindstedt/ Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Mate Pavic (teaming for the first time) and Pablo Carreno Busta/Andres Molteni.

In Case You Missed It

Nick Kyrgios prevents John Isner from winning a fourth consecutive title in Atlanta. Read

Jason Jung shares his trials and tribulations on the ATP Challenger Tour. Read

Sam Querrey, Donald Young, Tim Smyczek and Jesse Levine reminisce about their formative years in Kalamazoo. Read

Find out why the BB&T Atlanta Open is known for thinking outside the box. Read

Birthdays

8 August – Roger Federer (35), Marinko Matosevic (31)

14 August – Yen-Hsun Lu (33)

Rankings Movers

+12 Yoshihito Nishioka (85)

+5 Horacio Zeballos (73)

+4 Donald Young (49)

+4 Taylor Fritz (56)

+2 Nick Kyrgios (16)

Milestones

Los Cabos Singles

Julien Benneteau – 247 wins

Los Cabos Doubles

Artem Sitak – 49 wins

First off, I’d like to thank ATPWorldTour.com for giving me the opportunity to share my experiences as a professional tennis player with all of you.

Earlier this year, I faced probably one of the toughest decisions since turning pro. It was 4 January and I received an email telling me I got into the Australian Open. It is the only Grand Slam I have not played yet. A few weeks before that I was one set away from gaining a direct entry into the Aussie main draw at the Asia-Pacific Wildcard Tournament. But if I didn’t play the Aussie Open I would have the chance to make a deep run in the Bangkok Challenger since I would be seeded high. I decided to stay in Bangkok for a couple of reasons: the chance to make a good run, I know the courts well and am used to it, a lot of my friends live in Bangkok, and I just love being in Bangkok. The people are so nice and the food is amazing.

I ended up losing in the semi-finals to eventual winner and former Top 10 player Mikhail Youzhny. I was a bit nervous as the match did not even pass the hour mark. But I had the opportunity to play Youzhny again the very next week in the Philippines. The second time around I was right in the match with chances to take the second set. It’s nice to get the opportunity to play against top players because it really shows where your level is at and how you compare against the best of the best.

Challenger Chronicles I: Amir Weintraub
Challenger Chronicles II: Skupski Brothers

Traveling as a professional tennis player can be a grind at times. One of the craziest travel days I can remember was last year. I had just won a Futures tournament in Little Rock, Arkansas and was traveling to play the Guadalajara Challenger the very next day. It’s Monday morning and when I arrive at the airport, my flight is delayed. I didn’t want to wait at the airport all day so I called my friends who I stayed with in Little Rock. They came and picked me up and as they were pulling up… a fender bender (small collision). Luckily, no one was hurt. But as we put that behind us I had a notification that said my flight was going to be delayed a little longer. I was just thinking that I only had one racket in my bag that was freshly strung, all the others were broken. Since I had some time to kill I took my racket to get restrung. By the time that was finished it was time to go back to the airport. This time we were cleared to take off.

I arrived in Guadalajara around 8pm, passed through customs and was waiting for my bags…..nothing. I went to the lost baggage counter, handed the agent my baggage tags and he informed me that my bags were still in Little Rock and would be arriving on the next flight. Lucky me right? I don’t always carry my tennis bag on, but thankfully, I did for this trip. I got a call from the airline at midnight telling me my bags had just arrived and that they would be delivering it to my hotel.

They didn’t arrive to my room until 2am. I open my suitcase and protein powder is EVERYWHERE. My tub of protein exploded. It’s now 3am and I’m trying to get the powder off of my clothes, but I’m not doing a very good job. Mind you, I have to play in eight hours and I haven’t gotten any rest yet. So I gave up on trying to wash the clothes because they wouldn’t dry in time. I decided to borrow some clothes.

Match time. Still feeling delirious from the lack of sleep, the first set passed me by and I didn’t even know what the score was. But somehow by some travel luck or whatever luck I won the match in three sets and eventually ended up losing in the final – my first on the ATP Challenger Tour. It was one of the craziest travel experiences thus far.

Coming Soon: Part II