In a fairly successful day for the seeds, John Isner and Gael Monfils advanced to the third round of the ATP Citi Open in Washington on Wednesday.
The top-seeded Isner cheered up the home crowd with a 6-3 6-4 conquest of Australia’s James Duckworth. The last year’s finalist looked clinical throughout the 63-minute battle, firing 14 aces and squandering just three points on first serve, besides consolidating his service all through.
GAME. SET. MATCH. @JohnIsner #CITIOPEN pic.twitter.com/pIOWhF58c2
— Citi Open (@CitiOpen) July 21, 2016
Moving on, Isner has a tough assignment ahead in former Australian Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis, who brushed aside Australian journeyman John Millman 6-2 6-4.
Monfils, the No. 2 seed, extended his unbeaten head-to-head record to three matches against Chinese Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu following a routine 6-3 6-2 victory in 61 minutes. The Frenchman will continue to pursue his quest for season’s first title when he next meets Croatia’s Borna Coric.
The 16th-seeded Coric battled past Yuichi Sugita of Japan 6-4 6-4 in the other second-round encounter.
Elsewhere, in the battle of up-and-comers, 19-year-old German Alexander Zverev justified his seventh seeding as he pulled off a 6-4 6-2 win over a younger opponent in American Taylor Fritz.
The only heralded players to tumble were No. 9 Kevin Anderson and No. 10 Viktor Troicki. While the former went down in a nail-biting contest to Tunisian Malek Jaziri, losing 5-7 6-4 7-5, the latter was outplayed by local contender Ryan Harrison, 7-6 6-4.
The other seeds to advance were No. 3 Bernard Tomic (d. Donald Young 7-6 6-3), No. 5 Steve Johnson (d. Adrain Mannarino 6-3 6-4), No. 6 Jack Sock (d. Lukas Lacko 7-6 6-4), No. 13 Ivo Karlovic (d. Brian Baker 6-3 7-6), and No. 14 Gilles Muller (d. Yoshihito Nishioka 6-4 6-1).
