In the draw as a wild card, Andy Murray of Great Britain took down Japan’s Taro Daniel 6-2, 6-2 Tuesday in the first round of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Monday at Doha, Qatar.
Murray won 25 of 28 first-service points (89 percent), hit four aces and broke Daniel’s serve five out of 11 times. He will face No. 2 seed Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain in the next round.
No. 7 seed Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan was a 6-2, 6-4 winner over Jozef Kovalik of Slovakia, while Hungarian Marton Fucsovics upset No. 8 seed Lloyd Harris of South Africa 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Other winners Tuesday were Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori, Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, France’s Arthur Rinderknech and Swedish lucky loser Elias Ymer.
Open 13 Provence
In a duel of two French wild cards, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga cruised past Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-2 in the first round at Marseilles, France.
Tsonga, 36, was once ranked as high as No. 5 in the world but was 247th entering the week. He held an 11-2 advantage in aces over Simon, converted three of five break points and didn’t have his own serve broken.
Russia’s Roman Safiullin upset No. 7 Australian Alexei Popyrin in a two-hour, 40-minute marathon, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (3). Safiullin smashed 13 aces, saved four of five break points and capitalized on Popyrin’s nine double faults.
Also advancing were Moldova’s Radu Albot, Denmark’s Holger Rune, Czech Republic’s Tomas Machac and Frenchmen Hugo Gaston and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
–Field Level Media
