Day 3 of the ATP 1000 event the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati was a tough one for the big seeds in action with both Wawrinka and Djokovic pushed all the way while recent Toronto champ Tsonga was pushed out.
Third seed Stanislas Wawrinka put in a patchy performance in his opening round 6-3, 7-6 (5) win against the experienced German Benjamin Becker.The Swiss had a match point at 5-4 in the second set which Becker saved with a running forehand cross court winner. Becker went on to break Wawrinka and the two held serve into the tiebreaker with Wawrinka surviving a deuce game serving at 5-6.
In the tiebreak, Wawrinka got the minibreak for 4-2 as Becker made an error but it was Wawrinka who errored on the next point to hand back the break. The two held serve until 5-6, when serving to stay in the breaker and save the match, Becker overhit his forehand off a chipped backhand return and Wawrinka moved through to the third round.
Top seed Novak Djokovic battled past Gilles Simon 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. Djokovic’s first serve percentage was high at 71, but his second service was weaker, winning only 44 percent of points behind it, and he was broken three times. At one point, from the middle of the second set to early in the third, Djokovic dropped five consecutive games. However, the best returner in the game broke his opponent four times in all, that extra break proving decisive in the third set.
In other seeded action, 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga suffered a letdown after his title winning week in Toronto. Tsonga lacked the spark he had shown last week, going down in his opening match. He could not have been drawn a trickier opening round opponent than Mikhail Youznhy, however. The pair were tied at 3-3 in their head to head and Youzhny has all the shots and skill you would expect from a former top tenner and US Open semi-finalist. The Russian made light work of the Toronto champion, beating him 6-1, 6-4.
Marin Cilic won what promised to be a tough opening round against Feliciano Lopez. It was tough on paper at least. Lopez was a semi-finalist at last weeek’s event in Toronto, but Cilic beat him 6-3, 6-4 without breaking a sweat.
Other players through were Ernests Gulbis, seeded ninth, who needed two tiebreakers to beat Ivan Dodig. Robby Ginepri overcame Dominic Thiem in three sets. Qualifier James Ward beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-2, 3-6, 6-1. Vasek Pospisil edged Radek Stepanek in a third set tiebreaker and Andreas Seppi took three sets to see off Santiago Girlado.
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Commentary by Christian Deverille
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