2nd seeded Kei Nishikori was the first one to finish his match. He defeated the French Lucas Pouille in three sets 6-7(5) 6-1 6-4 in an hour and 51 minutes. Pouille took an early lead of 3-0, was broken back to 3-3, but he was successful in the tiebreak. The Frenchman was making more and more mistakes, while Nishikori kept cool and steady, which in the end won him the match. “It wasn’t easy today because there was no play on the training courts due to the bad weather. Nevertheless it was a good match for me, Lucas was a strong opponent”, Nishikori said after his win, remaining humble. Next opponent of Kei Nishikori will be one of the players with protected ranking, Brian Baker or Florian Mayer.
5th seed and newly made World No. 11 David Goffin opened his grass season with a hard fought win over another young gun, Borna Coric. The Belgian won 7-6(5) 6-7(3) 6-4 in mind-blowing 2 hours and 47 minutes. This was Goffin’s first match in Halle in his career, and his 4th win over Coric, owning the head-to-head 4-0. In the first set, Goffin took a break for 4-2, and kept it until Coric broke back to 5-4. Coric had an amazing lead of 4-0 in the tiebreak, but then won only 1 in the next 8 points, thus losing the first set. After two breaks in the opening two games of the second set, both players held their serve, but Coric was the one getting break points. The Croat proved himself in the tiebreak, where he dominated throughout and didn’t give Goffin a chance. Goffin and Coric were neck a neck in the deciding set, but the pressure was too much for Coric, has he double faulted at 4-5 30-30, which gave Goffin a match point, and he finished the match. “It was my first match on grass this year. That’s why I had some issues moving well. But this got better and thankfully in the end I won”, the Belgian summed up.
The Italian No. 2 Andreas Seppi upset the Spanish No. 2 David Ferrer 6-3 6-4. This was their first meeting on grass, and it yielded his first win over Ferrer in amazing 10 meetings. Seppi was leading for the majority of the match, and gave no chances to Ferrer. “That was a good start. I always feel good here on Centre Court. For me it was the first win against David in ten matches. That of course is tremendously important and means gaining strength” commented the Italian after the match.
