The Western and Southern Open, played in Mason (near Cincinnati), starts with Borna Coric winning the first match against Benoit Paire.
The tournament will not be played by the defending champion, Roger Federer, whose season has already come to an end. 2015 edition’s finalist Novak Djokovic will skip the event as well, so Olympics’ champion Andy Murray is the favourite for the title.
The first main draw-match was played on Sunday between Croatian Borna Coric and Frenchman Benoit Paire. Paire, who changed his coach few days ago, is now helped by the former tennis player Thierry Champion. Though, after dominating the first set he could not find his serve, putting into play the 37% of first serves in the second and the 27% in the third set. Coric managed to break him twice in each set to win 1-6 6-3 6-4.
Also, seven players earned a place into the main draw getting through qualifying.
The qualifiers are Czech Jiri Vesely, who beat Thiago Monteiro 6-7(5) 6-1 6-4, Japanese Yuichi Sugita, who beat Kyle Edmund 6-4 6-3, Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-4 6-1 over Brian Baker, Australian John Millman, 6-3 6-3 over Lukas Rosol and Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri 6-4 6-2 over Stefan Kozlov.
Two seeds lost as Portuguese Gastao Elias was defeated by Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3 6-2 and French Adrian Mannarino was beaten by German Mischa Zverev 7-6(4) 7-5.
Serbian Janko Tipsarevic withdrew from the main draw due to fatigue (won a challenger in China last week), and lucky loser Adrian Mannarino took his place.
ATP CINCINNATI (OH,USA) main draw:
1) Andy Murray – bye
Ivo Karlovic vs Juan Monaco
Alexandr Dolgopolov vs Kevin Anderson
(LL) Adrian Mannarino vs (13) Richard Gasquet
(11) David Goffin vs (Q) Nikoloz Basilashvili
Joao Sousa vs Bernard Tomic
Taylor Fritz vs (Q) Mikhail Youzhny
(5) Kei Nishikori – bye
(4) Milos Raonic – bye
Fabio Fognini vs John Isner
(Q) Yuichi Sugita vs Alexander Zverev
Nicolas Mahut vs (15) Roberto Bautista Agut
(9) Gael Monfils vs Pablo Carreno Busta
Marcos Baghdatis vs Vasek Pospisil
(Q) Malek Jaziri vs (Q) John Millman
(8) Dominic Thiem – bye
(6) Tomas Berdych – bye
(Q) Jiri Vesely vs Marcel Granollers
Fernando Verdasco vs Albert Ramos Vinolas
Victor Troicki vs (12) Marin Cilic
(14) Nick Kyrgios vs Lucas Pouille
Borna Coric vs Benoit Paire
Pablo Cuevas vs Sam Querrey
(3) Rafael Nadal – bye
(7) Jo Wilfried Tsonga – bye
Reilly Opelka vs Jeremy Chardy
Steve Johnson vs Federico Delbonis
Julien Benneteau vs (10) David Ferrer
(16) Feliciano Lopez vs (Q) Mischa Zverev
Gilles Simon vs Grigor Dimitrov
Jared Donaldson vs Nicolas Almagro
(2) Stan Wawrinka – bye
