Pablo Carreno-Busta and
Borna Coric won their opening games on Monday and moved to the 2nd round at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna.
Borna Coric was the first man to step onto the courts in Vienna on opening day. The match started at 14:00 CET and lasted for 89 minutes with the Croatian winning 6-4 6-4 against Fritz. It was a very tightly contested and physical match as both players posses a devastating serve which allows them to hold their serve easier than most. The first set was a close battle that only featured three break points. Coric served well for most of the match except one game where he allowed two break points but saved them all. It was a similar story for Fritz who played one bad game as well but it came late in the set and Coric used his only break point to win the set.
The 2nd set featured a similar blueprint with both players serving very well and holding their serve. They actually played better on their serve than in the first set but Coric was a bit better. Fritz had one break point but once again he failed to use it while Coric used his 2nd he faced in the set to break the American late in the set. He went on to finish the match in the next game.
The 2nd interesting match of the day was between Pablo Carreno-Busta and
Gael Monfils. Pablo has had a stellar run in North America while his clay season was less succesfull. Monfils opened the year with back to back titles indoors but his level since the restart has been abysmal. The Frenchman's form wasn't much better in this match with Pablo winning the opening set 6-1 in just 26 minutes. The Frenchman looked terrible at the start of the 2nd set as well with Pablo taking an early 2-0 lead. Monfils then retired from the match after only 41 minutes of play.