John Isner survived a very tight match against Dusan Lajovic after a 4-6 7-6(5) 7-6(6) to advance to the second round in Shanghai.
The American hit 29 aces as he had a tough time breaking his Serbian opponent in front of the Chinese crowd on Stadium court. Isner failed to break once during the match and had to save a match point during the enthralling counter. However the World number 16 used his big serve and experience to advance to the second round in Shanghai. The tall American will now play Greek youngster Stefanos Tsitsipas, who was courtside watching the American’s match.
Another American, Sam Querrey increased his chances of reaching the season ending finale in London after a 6-3 6-2 victory over Yuichi Sugita. The American only lost four points on his first serve as he brutalised Sugita from the back of the court. Querrey will need a good run this week if he wants to move ahead of players such as David Goffin in the race to London. He will play fellow American Frances Tiafoe in the second round in Shanghai.
11th seed Kevin Anderson is another player that is chasing a London spot and went one stop closer to achieving that with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Adrian Mannarino. The Frenchman came into Shanghai on the back of a final in Tokyo and he failed to show the kind of form that took him to the final last week. Anderson was completely dominant as he dropped only one point on his first serve. The South African will now play Jan-Lennard Struff, who was trailing Mischa Zverev 3-6 6-5 when Zverev retired.
Another noticeable result in Shanghai today was the retirement of Jack Sock as he trailed Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov 4-6 6-1 2-1. Sock has a bad history of injuries and this adds to that tally as he will lose some major ranking points this week after his performance in the event last year. Dolgopolov will now play Feliciano Lopez.
Here are the four other first round results:
Ryan Harrison def Ze Zhang 6-2 6-3
Viktor Troicki def Denis Shapovalov 6-7(3) 6-3 6-0
Aljaz Bedene def Paolo Lorenzi 6-1 6-4
Diego Schwartzman def Jordan Thompson 6-4 7-6(4)
