Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, seeded eighth in the National Bank Open, advanced to the third round of the Montreal tournament by beating Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori late Tuesday.
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Hurkacz, playing his first game on a bye, would have liked to close the books sooner but will certainly not spit on his 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-2 victory at the expense of the 44th racket in the world.
In the first set, the 25-year-old stole his rival’s serve in the sixth game and never looked back.
Ruusuvuori gave him a golden chance to end the debate early in the second set by missing several set points as he led 6-5. The Finn however persisted and finally forced the holding of an ultimate set by winning the tiebreaker, but ran out of gas at the end of the duel.
Recall that Ruusuvuori had made Stan Wawrinka bite the dust in the first round.
Hurkacz will face the winner of the match between Argentinian Diego Schwartzman (12th) and Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas. The latter showed the exit to guest player David Goffin in two sets of 7-6 (2) and 6-2.
Moreover, Schwartzman reached the second round of this ATP1000 series tournament not without difficulty. The Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina gave him a good battle before losing the flag 1-6, 6-3 and 6-4.