Rojer/Tecau Battle Through Tough Opener At The Australian Open

Eighth seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau battled hard on Wednesday to reach the second round of the Australian Open. The Dutch-Romanian duo, playing its seventh season together, defeated Dominic Inglot and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 in one hour and 36 minutes.

Rojer and Qureshi have history together, qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals as a team in 2012 and 2013. But it was Rojer and Tecau who showed their chemistry under pressure against Inglot and Qureshi, who were competing in just their second tournament as a tandem.

Rojer and Tecau, who have won 20 tour-level titles together, will next play Aussie wild cards Max Purcell and Luke Saville or in-form Russian Andrey Rublev and Belarusian Andrei Vasilevski.

There was a big upset on the first day of doubles action, as Kazakhs Alexander Bublik and Mikhail Kukushkin defeated 2019 Roland Garros champions Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies 6-3, 7-6(7). Krawietz and Mies are now 1-4 on the season after going 1-2 at the ATP Cup and losing in the first round of the Adelaide International. All four of their losses this year have come in straight sets.

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Bublik and Kukushkin will play Aussie wild cards Lleyton Hewitt and Jordan Thompson or South Korean wild cards Ji Sung Nam and Min-Kyu Song.

Sixth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, who won an ATP Masters 1000 title together in Montreal last year, faced few difficulties in a 6-4, 6-4 victory against Marcus Daniell and Philipp Oswald. Granollers and Zeballos have proven dangerous at the Grand Slam-level, making the championship match at last year’s US Open.

Other teams that advanced Thursday are No. 16 seeds Austin Krajicek/Franko Skugor, Henri Kontinen/Jan-Lennard Struff, Sander Gille/Joran Vliegen and Marcelo Arevalo/Jonny O’Mara.

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/2Reh2fC