Juan Martin Del Potro edged out Tomas Berdych in a hard fought contest to advance to the second round of the Western and Southern Open with a 3-6 7-6(1) 6-0 victory.
The former US Open champion played a bad first set as he hit many unforced errors to hand Berdych the break for a 3-1 lead. The 10th seed increased his level of play and was holding serve comfortably. He took the first set 6-3 in convincing fashion against Del Potro. However the Argentinian started to show the raw power that his forehand contains and broke for a 3-1 lead in the second set.
It looked like that Del Potro would take the second set 6-4, however Berdych had other plans as he broke to 15 for 5-5. However from then on the tall Argentinian dominated as he powered his way through the tiebreak 7-1 to level the match at one set all. It was one way traffic as Del Potro broke three times in the final set to bagel Berdych and seal his place into the second round. Del Potro will now play American Mitchell Krueger in the second round.
Also in the bottom half of the draw there was a win for Karen Khachanov who beat Diego Schwartzman 6-1 1-6 6-3 in 1 hour and 38 minutes. The big hitting Russian won 80% of first service points as he edged out the in form Argentinian to advance to the second round. He will now play Thomas Fabbiano, who took Roger Federer’s place in the main draw.
In the top half of the draw Nick Kyrgios won the battle of the injured players as he defeated a very sore David Goffin in 1 hour and 6 minutes. Neither player looked comfortable on the court as Kyrgios was struggling from a hip injury while the ninth seed suffered a knee injury. However it was Kyrgios who served 10 aces to wrap up the win just before he was going to take an injury timeout.
He will now play Alexandr Dolgopolov who sprung a surprise shock as he beat Kevin Anderson 6-3 7-6(6) in Cincinnati. The Ukrainian survived 24 aces from Anderson as Dolgopolov won 34 out of 36 first serve points to set up an intriguing match with Kyrgios. Anderson, had reached the final of Washington and Quarter-Finals of Montreal before being eliminated by the champion of both tournaments Alexander Zverev.
