Alex de Minaur blew through the opening set but needed some good luck in the second to emerge with a 6-2, 7-6 (6) opening win over James Duckworth on Tuesday at the ATP Montreal Masters.<\/p>\n
De Minaur<\/a>, seeded third, hasn’t lost to a fellow Aussie in four years, but he was made to work hard<\/a> by his 86th-ranked compatriot to keep that streak alive.<\/p>\n The second-round match turned in an instant in the second-set tiebreaker when a return which rolled off the top of the net handed de Minaur a match point after he saved six set points for his opponent.<\/p>\n “A little bit of luck went my way in the tiebreaker,” de Minaur said. “He was hitting me off the court in the second set, but I got lucky and managed to sneak away with the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n “Ultimately it was a lot of fighting and competing,” added de Minaur, the 2023 runner-up in Canada who married British WTA player Katie Boulter<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n De Minaur said he hasn’t given much thought to his solid recent record against fellow Aussies.<\/p>\n “We’re doing our best to make Australia proud,” he said. “We have strength in numbers.”<\/p>\n In other second-round action China’s Shang Juncheng<\/a> – only just returned from months away because of injury – scored the first notable upset of the week with 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (5)<\/a> defeat of 10th seed Andrey Rublev<\/a>.<\/p>\n Shang saved five match points, on his way to the third round, breaking Rublev as he served for the match at 5-3 in the third and hanging on to win a seven-deuce service game.<\/p>\n Former world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a> regained some of the touch lost during a recent rankings slump, with the high-profile qualifier dispatching Martin Damm<\/a> 6-4, 6-4<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 98-minute first-round win sends Tsitsipas<\/a> into a match with Brazilian Joao Fonseca<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 53rd-ranked Tsitsipas, winner last month in Gstaad, said that a coaching change – he split from his father Apostolos for a second time – is paying off now that he is under the guidance of coaches from Patrick Mouratoglou’s French academy.<\/p>\n Buddhist philosophy<\/p>\n “It’s a chapter that should have started a long time ago,” Tsitsipas said. “I guess I was too patient with my time and too nice with handling certain things, to take so much time to proceed with the change. But it’s how life works.”<\/p>\n “Certain things come at a certain time, I’m very Buddhist in that sort of philosophy.<\/p>\n “Now we are here, and we are doing it the way I like it. I want it to be done. I want it to be done with a coach that I am happy with right now … someone that I trust.”<\/p>\n The Greek claimed the opening set against Damm and came back from a break down in the second to earn a 5-2 lead and the chance to serve it out.<\/p>\n But the Czech managed to break back, forcing Tsitsipas to clinch victory two games later on a forehand winner.<\/p>\n “I need to focus and concentrate, and that’s what I was trying to do out there today, trying to keep it locked in as much as I could and not let any distractions get in the way,” Tsitsipas, 27, said.<\/p>\n “Tennis is about milliseconds, getting properly behind the ball and being constantly well positioned. I need to focus on how to do that in the best possible way.<\/p>\n “I felt in control up two breaks, but things got tough. I have nothing to regret, I was able to fight my way through the match. I took a good grip to close it out.”<\/p>\n Hubert Hurkacz<\/a> a 2022 finalist in Montreal who is coming back from a knee injury suffered at Wimbledon, returned with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2<\/a> win over Marcos Giron<\/a>.<\/p>\n Britain’s Jakob Fearnley<\/a>, who reached the final of a hard court Challenger last month, advanced past French veteran Adrian Mannarino<\/a> 7-6 (3), 6-4<\/a>, overcoming more than 30 unforced errors to book a meeting with 13th seeded Czech Jakub Mensik<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fellow Brit Jack Draper<\/a> shed bitter tears as his latest injury comeback collapsed in a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2<\/a> loss to France’s Terrance Atmane<\/a>, who delivered an ace on match point.<\/p>\n Draper, who had not played a match since Eastbourne in June, was consoled at the net by his victorious opponent.<\/p>\n It was more disappointment for Draper after he and new coach Andy Murray<\/a> travelled to last week’s Washington event only for Draper to withdraw as an existing arm injury flared up.<\/p>\n Canadian Denis Shapovalov<\/a>, who reached the final in Los Cabos at the weekend, was disappointed to retire with an ankle injury to hand a 4-6, 6-4, 3-0<\/a> victory to Zachary Svajda<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur blew through the opening set but needed some good luck in the second to emerge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-728533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}