Top seed Daniil Medvedev is already laying down an early marker as the man to beat at this year\u2019s Brisbane International after sweeping past former world No.10 Frances Tiafoe on the back of a wildly successful day on serve on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On the heels of a convincing first-round outing against Marton Fucsovics, the 29-year-old put in a clinical hour of tennis, commanding every corner of the court in a 6-3 6-2 victory.<\/p>\n
Reigning champion Jiri Lehecka was less fortunate, forced to retire with a right ankle injury while trailing 3-6 2-1 against American Sebastian Korda.<\/p>\n
In the second match at Pat Rafter Arena, Medvedev\u2019s 21 winners \u2013 including nine aces \u2013 were almost double his opponent\u2019s. He claimed 91 per cent of first-serve points and never faced a break point.<\/p>\n
It left plenty to be content with in Team Medvedev ahead of a quarterfinal clash against either big-serving Reilly Opelka or lucky loser Kamil Majchrzak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court is pretty fast, so you need to serve well and I\u2019m happy with how I served,\u201d Medvedev said. \u201cI feel like it was better than the first round. From the first point it puts a lot of pressure on your opponent, got a couple of good games on his serve. It was enough today, that\u2019s how tennis is sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehecka\u2019s injury retirement pitted Korda into the quarterfinals for an all-American clash against Alex Michelsen, an earlier winner of eighth seed Learner Tien.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pegula prevails to reach third round on debut<\/p>\n
In the opening match at Pat Rafter Arena on Wednesday, fourth seed Jessica Pegula had every reason to expect she\u2019d be in it for the long haul when she took the court against Anna Kalinskaya.<\/p>\n
All four of the pair\u2019s previous meetings had gone the distance and their fifth proved no different. Pegula improved the head-to-head to 4-1 after she twice rebounded from a break down in the deciding set 6-2 2-6 6-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe played Anna first match of the year. We\u2019ve had so many long intense crazy matches last year, so it was a real test for me today, especially having a bye the first round, not having any matches under me,\u201d Pegula said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was going to be tough, she\u2019s such a great player. She can really take the racquet out of your hand, change the direction of the ball so well, so I kind of figured out just in time and competed really well, maybe got a little lucky here and there too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually practised with each other before the draw came out and when we saw it we were like \u2018man, here we go again\u2019 because it\u2019s always such a battle. I always appreciate those tough matches win or lose \u2013 obviously it\u2019s preferable to win \u2013 and to come out on top in a tough match. Hopefully I can use that as some momentum this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t miss out on the chance to be part of one of the most exciting tournaments of the year. Tickets for the Brisbane International are on sale via\u00a0Ticketmaster<\/a>. Prices start at $30. Premium Experiences are on sale via\u00a0Ticketmaster and the Premium Experiences Team.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top seed Daniil Medvedev is already laying down an early marker as the man to beat at this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,176511,22960,72820,85,747],"class_list":["post-396996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brisbane-international-tennis-tournament","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-news-article","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}