Federer eases into third round
NEWYORK: Second seed Roger Federer defeated Benoit Paire in straight sets at the US Open on Thursday to set up a third-round match against Nick Kyrgios.
Five-time champion Federer made it 18 wins in 18 second round appearances in New York by seeing off error-plagued Paire 7-5, 6-4, 6-4.
Also going through was twotime US Open winner Novak Djokovic, who downed Tennys Sandgren 6-1, 6-3, 6-7 (2/7), 6-2. Next up for Djokovic is Richard Gasquet.
Kyrgios reached the third round by beating France’s PierreHugues Herbert 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3, 6-0.
German third seed Alexander Zverev also progressed after a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Nicolas Mahut.
Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki lost 6-4, 6-2 to world No 36 Lesia Tsurenko who claimed a second top 10 win this month having also defeated Garbine Muguruza in Cincinnati.
Maria Sharapova took her night time record at the tournament to 21 wins in 21 matches with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Sorana Cirstea of Romania. The Russian, who committed 33 unforced errors, next faces 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
In another match, Angelique Kerber kept her bid for a second US Open title on track, outlasting Sweden’s Johanna Larsson 6-2, 5-7, 6-4. Kerber will next take on Dominika Cibulkova.
BOPANNA LOSES
Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan had contrasting results in their respective matches on Thursday. In men’s doubles, Divij Sharan and New Zealand’s Artem Sitak advanced to the second round with a comfortable win in straight sets over the American pair of Evan Zhu and Martin Red- licki. The Indo-kiwi pair won 6-4, 6-4 to set up a second round clash against the seventh seeded Polish-brazilian duo of Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo.
In mixed doubles, Bopanna crashed out after losing his first round clash partnering Laura Siegemund of Germany. The Indo-german duo was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Katarina Srebotnik (Slovenia) and Micahel Venus (New Zealand).