Thanasi Kokkinakis, Jordan Thompson, Rinki Hijikata, James Duckworth and Alexei Popyrin all won their first round matches in straight sets at the Canadian Masters 1000.
August 8, 2024, Montreal, Canada | Dan Imhoff
Thanasi Kokkinakis secured a perfect five-set victory over France’s Gael Monfils in the first round of the Montreal Masters on Wednesday.
81castle– He easily defeated the 34th ranked player in the preliminary round 6-3 6-3 and will face 4th seed Hubert Hurkacz in the second round, a player he faced three times on hard courts last year.
Kokkinakis won his first Canadian Masters title 10 years after making his Masters 1000 debut as a qualifier in Toronto.
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Jordan Thompson, Alexei Popyrin, qualifier Rinki Hijikata and lucky loser James Duckworth also advanced in straight sets.
Thompson, who broke into the top 30 for the first time this week, put in an impressive performance for his countrymen, defeating the 22-year-old, ranked 28th in the world, 7-5 6-2.
Thompson holds a 2-1 edge against world No. 4 Zverev, who won his first tour title this year after beating him in the semifinals in Los Cabos and also in the round of 32 in Tokyo last year. Zverev won his first title in Washington seven years ago.
Popyrin, ranked 62nd in the world, also earned 39 points to beat her higher-ranked opponent.Day-Tomas Matsac of Czech Republic 6-3 6-4.
Machak had little time to prepare for the transition from clay to hard courts in Paris, where he won the mixed doubles gold medal and reached the semifinals of the men’s doubles.
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While the Czech fighter remained in the match, a spectator collapsed in the stands and the match was stopped. After the woman was examined and the match resumed, Popyrin maintained her concentration and finished the match in the second round against No. 11 after one round.Day Seed Ben Shelton.
Shelton beat the 24-year-old in his first Grand Slam quarter-final at Melbourne Park last year.
74 people in the preliminary roundDay-Ranked Hijikata snapped a four-game losing streak in the ATP main draw with a 6-1 7-5 win over Japan’s Taro Daniel. The win set up a match against seventh seed Griger Dimitrov.
World number 80 Duckworth made the most of her lucky underdog call-up, edging out a 6-4 6-1 win over 37-man competition.Day Marcos Giron has risen to the top of the rankings.
The win was his biggest since beating then-No. 14 Shelton in Stuttgart in June to set up a first-round matchup with sixth seed Kasper Rudd.
