Top seed Raonic advances at Delray Beach

MIAMI: Canadian top seed Milos Raonic (pic) advanced to the quarter-finals of the Delray Beach Open by defeating Croatia’s Borna Coric 6-3, 7-6 (7-2).

On a night when rain delayed the start of play for more than eight hours, world No, 4 Raonic fired 12 aces on his way to victory after 94 minutes in the early minutes of Thursday morning.

Raonic, who reached the tie-breaker with his 11th ace and reached match point with his last ace, booked a quarter-final matchup against British eighth seed Kyle Edmund, who outlasted Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.

Also advancing to the last eight was US third seed Jack Sock, who downed Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 6-1, and American fifth seed Steve Johnson, who eliminated Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka by the same score.

Sock and Johnson will meet in another quarter-final.

A second round match will see Argentina’s seventh-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro, in his first tournament of the year after helping his homeland win the Davis Cup, meeting Bosnia’s Damir Dzumhur.

Two other second-round matches will be all-American affairs, with teen star Taylor Fritz facing Donald Young and fourth-seeded defending champion Sam Querrey meeting Jared Donaldson. —AFP