Austria’s Dominic Thiem, the 2020 U.S. Open champion, cruised past American eighth seed Ben Shelton 6-2, 6-2 in the second round of the Millennium Estoril Open on Thursday in Estoril, Portugal.
Thiem, the former world No. 3 player, is hunting for his first title since that grand slam breakthrough in 2020 and a subsequent wrist injury. Against Shelton, he won a whopping 19 of 22 first-service points (86.4 percent) and converted five of nine break-point opportunities.
The No. 2 and 4 seeds also fell in Portugal. Spain’s Bernabe Zapata Miralles outlasted second-seeded Hubert Hurkacz of Poland 6-7 (7), 6-4, 6-2, while Frenchman Quentin Halys eked past fourth-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain 7-6 (5), 7-5.
No. 6 seed Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia swept past Austrian Jurij Rodionov 6-0, 6-1 in a hair less than 64 minutes.
Grand Prix Hassan II
No. 1 seed Lorenzo Musetti of Italy took care of France’s Hugo Gaston 6-2, 6-3 to ease into the quarterfinals in Marrakech, Morocco.
Second-seeded Daniel Evans of Great Britain was also successful in beating Australia’s Alexei Popyrin 6-1, 6-3, but third-seeded Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands suffered a 6-7 (8), 6-4, 6-0 defeat at the hands of Australia’s Christopher O’Connell.
Dutch fourth seed Tallon Griekspoor rallied past Swedish qualifier Elias Ymer 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. Other winners included France’s Alexandre Muller, Italian qualifier Andrea Vavassori, Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena and Russia’s Pavel Kotov.
U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship
Fifth seed J.J. Wolf and Denis Kudla of the U.S. were tied 4-4 in the first set of their second-round match when rain caused a delay in Houston.
Play was expected to resume no sooner than 6:30 p.m. local time.
No. 4 seed John Isner of the U.S. had also begun his match against Gijs Brouwer of the Netherlands before the delay. Among the other matches on the schedule for Thursday night was top-seeded Frances Tiafoe against wild card Steve Johnson in an all-American matchup.
–Field Level Media