Coric Wins All-Croat Clash In Toronto

Borna Coric came from behind to defeat fellow Croat Ivan Dodig 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 on Monday at the Rogers Cup. The NextGen star hit 35 winners to advance to the second round in Toronto after two hours and 22 minutes.

“It was a good match from my side,” said Coric. “In the first set, I didn’t play my best tennis and I didn’t feel very confident. I got a little bit angry, but in the end it was good because I needed to let it out of my system.”

The 19 year old next faces fifth seed Tomas Berdych. The Czech leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 2-0. Their most recent meeting was in March at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 in Indian wells (Berdych won in straight sets). “I have a very tough second round,” said Coric on his next match. “He is the favourite, but I’m going to give my best and try to play better than today.”

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic will open his bid for a 30th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown in the second round when he faces Gilles Muller. The Luxembourg native fired 21 aces to advance with a 7-6,(5), 6-1 victory over Dmitry Tursunov. 

In a battle of young stars making their Rogers Cup main draw debut, Steven Diez topped NextGen star Kyle Edmund 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. The 25-year-old Canadian wild card capitalised on four of his 10 break point chances to advance to the second round after one hour and 46 minutes.

“That was really fun; I’m really happy,” said Diez, who is ranked No. 192 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. He next faces the winner of No. 12 seed Bernard Tomic and qualifier Alejandro Gonzalez. “I know I played really well. I’m really happy to win here in front of my home public. I was born here. I’m really happy in this moment and I want to keep going.”