The first matches of the main draw were played today, all players but Groth confirmed their position as favorites and won their matches fairly easily. There were no matches going to 3 sets, except for the last match, and the match of they day; Ryan Harrison against Frances Tiafoe.
Headliners of Day 1 were Frances Tiafoe against Ryan Harrison. The match started off really well for Harrison, when he was a big break up, 4-1. After then Tiafoe broke back, both guys held their serves and went into the tiebreaker. Tiafoe came out playing amazingly, not allowing Harrison to win a single ball and taking the first set. However, Harrison wasn’t giving up, came out strong and broke in the third game. Tiafoe broke back at 2-3 and from then on both players were holding until the tiebreaker. Despite many mini breaks in the beginning, the tiebreak turned out to last 18 points, with Harrison winning 10-8. We saw a break on each side in the first four game of the deciding set. From then on both players managed to hold until Harrison managed to break Tiafoe and win the match with the final score 6-7(0) 7-6(8) 6-4. The match lasted exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes.
The first match finished at this year’s Memphis Open was played between the fifth seed Denis Kudla and Rajeev Ram. It was a big week for Ram last week, when he finally won his first match on clay at the age of 31. In Quito he managed to beat the Challenger Circuit legend, Horacio Zeballos. Ram didn’t bring the form home to the U.S. and lost to Kudla easily 4-6 2-6.
Simultaneously with this match, but on a smaller court was played Luca Vanni – Mikhail Kukushkin. Although these guys are separated only by 10 spaces in the rankings and their age is similar, their careers have taken completely paths. Kukushkin has been a stable Top 50 player for several years, but with his points from Sydney final coming off, he dropped to the 90s. Luca Vanni has been off anybody’s radar until last year, when he reached a final in Sao Paulo. Kukushkin won in two close sets, 6-4 7-6(4).
Next on was a clash between two young qualifiers, Yoshihito Nishioka and Jared Donaldson. Both guys had tough matches in the qualifying, but managed to pull through, Nishioka having a three-setter against Menendez-Maceiras, and Donaldson against his countryman 
Tennys Sandgren. However the match itself was a bit of a flop, with Nishioka being in control of the first set completely. Some intrigue came in the second set, where we didn’t see a break until 5-4, when Nishioka broke and won the match 6-3, 6-4.
6th seed Sam Groth getting upset by the Ukranian No. 3, Illya Marchenko. Groth started his year pretty badly, which is unusual, because Sam Groth really gets up when getting in front of the home crowd, but with bad losses to Chung and Delbonis, Groth only managed to get one win before leaving Australia, Illya Marchenko had a great run in Doha, making the semifinals, beating David Ferrer. The hard hitting Ukranian finally started unlocking his full potential and talent last season when he broke Top 100 for the first time. With both guys being great servers, it was no surprise that the match had no breaks and both sets ended in tie-breaks. Marchenko really pushed from the start in those, and won the match 7-6(4) 7-6(2).
