Edmund is through in Morocco as Vesely quits

Top seed Albert Ramosvinolas and the secondseeded Kyle Edmund made comfortable progress in the opening round of the Grand Prix Hassan II.

Spaniard Ramos-vinolas faced few problems as he saw off home hope Amine Ahouda 6-1, 6-2 in Marrakech. British No 1 Edmund raced into a 5-0 lead against Jiri Vesely and what was already shaping up to be a routine win for the 23-year-old became even easier when Vesely retired from the match.

It was not all plain sailing for the seeds though.

Holland’s Robin Haase, the fifth seed, went down 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to Mirza Basic of Bosnia and Alexandr Dolgopolov, the seventh seed from Ukraine, lost 6-2, 6-3 to Italian Andrea Arnaboldi.

Meanwhile, fifth seed Fernando Verdasco was defeated in the first round of the US Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston by qualifier Denis Kudla.

Verdasco, ranked 36th in the world, went a break up but was broken back twice by the American as he lost the first set 6-4. The second went to a tiebreak, with Verdasco losing his first three service points as the world No 122 prevailed 7/4.

Frances Tiafoe made it through to the next round, beating wild card Mackenzie Mcdonald 6-3, 6-3.

Tiafoe broke his opponent twice for 5-3 and served to love for the first set, and broke the world No 142 early in the second. He pressed home his advantage, winning the match on his first break point at 5-3.

Earlier, Tennys Sandgren made short work of Blaz Kavcic taking just over an hour to see off the Slovenian 6-2, 6-2, Henri Laaksonen took less than 60 minutes to book his place in the next round with a 6-4, 6-3 winoverdustinbrownand Bjorn Fratangelo beat Jordan Thompson 6-1, 6-1.

At the WTA Claro Open in Bogota, top seed Tatjana Maria beat Georgina Garcia-perez 6-3, 6-2. Sweden’s Johanna Larsson is also through to the next round after beating Ysaline Bonaventure 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 and Anna Blinkova beat wild card Maria Camila Osorio Serrano 6-2, 6-4.