Facundo Bagnis reached his first ATP World Tour quarter-final on Wednesday by knocking out second seed Joao Sousa 6-2, 6-4 in 70 minutes at the Grand Prix Hassan II. Sousa is now 4-10 on the season.

Bagnis will now face Albert Montanes, who recorded his fourth straight win over fellow Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-4, 6-4 in 77 minutes.

Paul-Henri Mathieu, who won the 2007 title when the tournament was held in Casablanca, will face third seed Borna Coric in the last eight. Mathieu won 83 per cent of his first service points to overcome qualifier Maximo Gonzalez 7-6(4), 6-0 in just over 90 minutes.​

Coric, this season’s Chennai finalist, advanced without striking a ball when Simone Bolelli pulled out of the ATP World Tour 250 tournament due to a knee injury.

Seventh seed and this year’s Sao Paulo runner-up Pablo Carreno Busta once against got the better of Evgeny Donskoy 6-2, 6-3 in a first-round clash. Last month, Carreno Busta beat Donskoy 6-3, 6-4 at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

Top seeds and five-time champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan have survived a scare to reach the second round of the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship. The Americans fought back from two match points down in the match tie-break to deny countrymen Denis Kudla and Donald Young 3-6, 6-1, 11-9.

Trailing 7/9 in the match tie-break, the Bryan brothers reeled off the last four points of the match to keep their bid for a first title since ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Montreal last August. They saved five of seven break points in the one-hour, three-minute encounter to book a second round date with another all-American duo, wild cards Tommy Paul and Reilly Opelka.

Third seeds American Eric Butorac and Scott Lipsky also progressed. The Americans posted a straight-forward 6-4, 6-4 result against New Zealanders Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak. They will face either Brian Baker and Dimitry Tursunov or Victor Estrella Burgos and Santiago Gonzalez.

The Australian-Brazilian pairing of Chris Guccione and Andre Sa had a tougher time of it, recovering from a set down to grind out a 5-7, 7-6(3), 10-2 win over the Austrian-Slovenian duo of Julian Knowle and Igor Zelenay. Knowle and Zelenay led a set and 5-2 in the second before Guccione and Sa mounted their comeback to book a second-round match against fourth seeds Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey.

In Marrakech, top seed Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt got off to a winning start, downing Moroccan wild cards Reda El Amrani and Lamine Ouahab 6-2, 6-4 in 57 minutes. Fourth seed Oliver Marach and Fabrice Martin were not so fortunate, falling in the opening round to Rohan Bopanna and Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-2.

The all-Argentine pairing of Guillermo Duran and Maximo Gonzalez had a 6-4, 7-6(7) triumph over Teymuraz Gabashvili and Jonathan Marray, while Marin Draganja and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi fought back for a 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 result over Jonathan Erlich and Colin Fleming.

Back in Houston, John Isner is hoping to recreate some of his favorite memories from the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship this week.

The American has played the event eight times in as many years. But he’s had uneven showings the past four years, finishing as a finalist (2012), champion (2013) and twice losing in his first match (2014, 2015). “I’ve been feast or famine here,” Isner said on Tuesday. “I’m looking to buck that trend of the last two years.”

The No. 1 seed received a first-round bye and is scheduled to play his second-round match against compatriot Denis Kudla on Wednesday evening. He’ll start his Houston run without the help of a full-time coach. He and former ATP World Tour player Justin Gimelstob announced their split on Gimelstob’s website on Monday. The two have worked together since December 2014.

“After an incredibly enjoyable year and a half coaching one the best talents in the sport, John and I have decided to end our professional relationship,” wrote Gimelstob, who also serves on the ATP World Tour Board of Directors. “I’m very proud of what John has accomplished and I wish him the best moving forward.”

Isner said he’s without a coach for the time being, although countryman and former World No. 7 Mardy Fish of the USTA is with him in Houston. “Not having a coach is not going to hinder me at all,” Isner said. “It’s all on me to come here and play well.”

The 30 year old will try to improve on his start to 2016. Isner is 8-6 this year but three times has lost in his first match at tournaments, including at the Argentina Open, the Rio Open presented by Claro, and the Miami Open presented by Itau.

“I think I have a lot of upside, given how I play and the style of my game,” Isner said. “But at the same time if I’m not doing the right things on the court, and I’ve shown this this year, I can lose to a lot of players.”

The World No. 15’s three early exits this year have come against players ranked outside the Top 70 of the ATP Emirates Rankings, including his 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(5) loss to World No. 132 Tim Smyczek last month in Miami. Isner has won less than 20 per cent (1-5) of his matches that have come down to the final set this year. For his career, he’s won almost 60 per cent of those matches.

“This year, especially, I’ve lost a lot of incredibly tough matches, which in the past I’ve been accustomed to winning. So it’s been a bit of a trying 2016 so far,” he said. “But I feel strong and I feel fit and as long as I still feel that way and want to compete and am hungry out there, I know I can do some very good things.”

Spring is the season when things really kick into high gear. No, not for tennis. For wrestling.

I’ve been a WWE fan pretty much all my life. Growing up in Greensboro, N.C., it felt like every year we would get a major WWE event in our backyard, at the Coliseum: either a Raw (WWE television program) or a pay-per-view. So my friends and I started getting really into it when we were around 10 or 11 — and I’ve been a die-hard fan ever since.

And when I say that my life revolved around WWE, I mean it revolved around WWE. Pro wrestling was life: Every Monday, like clockwork, I was right in front of the TV, ready for that week’s Raw. (My parents always made me go to bed before it ended, but I would sneak back downstairs to watch).

Every month my friends would come over and they’d each chip in five bucks so that we could watch that month’s pay-per-view. Every time Shawn Michaels would come out with a new T-shirt, I’d buy it – and I couldn’t wait to show it off at school the next day. I mean, it was serious.

In honour of this year’s WrestleMania, I thought I would draw some parallels between the two worlds that I know best: the ATP World Tour and the WWE.

Rafael Nadal is the Ultimate Warrior

That raw, intense, one-of-a-kind energy. Both won championships, and both packed stadiums. But mostly, it’s that energy. There will never be another Warrior, and there will never be another Rafa.

Nick Kyrgios is Stone Cold Steve Austin

Stone Cold is one of the most colourful characters you’ll ever come across. You never know what is going to come out of his mouth, both during a match and on the mic. Total disregard for authority. And of course: an insane talent.

Read the full story.

Marcos Baghdatis made a perfect start to his campaign at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, dismissing Diego Schwartzman 6-0, 6-0 in 48 minutes on Tuesday afternoon in Houston.

It marked the first double bagel on the ATP World Tour since last April, when Sergiy Stakhovsky defeated Mikhail Ledovskikh in the Munich first round, and the first at this ATP World Tour 250 tournament since 1986 (Diego Perez d. Bruno Oresar).

Baghdatis capitalised on six of his 12 break point chances and won 77 per cent of his service points en route to his most decisive tour-level victory. In 2011, he dropped one game against Denis Gremelmayr in the ‘s-Hertogenbosch quarter-finals.

The 30-year-old Cypriot will meet the winner between Fernando Verdasco and qualifier Carlos Berlocq as he looks to reach the Houston quarter-finals for the first time.