Top Seeds Advance, Defending Champions Ousted
Top Seeds Advance, Defending Champions Ousted
Top seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut successfully began their Australian Open title quest, advancing to the second round with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Adrian Mannarino and Adil Shamasdin in exactly one hour on Thursday. The all-French duo next face Jerzy Janowicz and Marcin Matkowski.
Sam Querrey and Donald Young caused the biggest upset in the doubles draw thus far, ousting defending champions and second seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares in the first round. The Americans needed to capitalise on just their one break point chance in the 72-minute match for a 6-3, 7-6(5) win over the British/Brazilian team. Next up for Querrey and Young in the second round is the all-Russian duo of #NextGenATP star Karen Khachanov and Andrey Kuznetsov.
Sixth seeds and 2016 ATP Finals runners-up Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram advanced to the second round with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Aliaksandr Bury and Paolo Lorenzi. No. 7 seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo, a new team for 2017, beat Swedes Johan Brunstrom and Andreas Siljestrom 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 for a meeting in the second round with Nicholas Monroe and Artem Sitak.
Eighth seeds Daniel Nestor and Edouard Roger-Vasselin needed just 57 minutes to beat Andres Molteni and Diego Schwartzman 6-0, 6-4. A clash with home hopes Marc Polmans and Andrew Whittington awaits the Canadian/French team in the second round.
Elsewhere, tenth seeds Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi came from a set deficit to defeat Leander Paes and Andre Sa 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-4. Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, the No. 14 seeds, beat brothers Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski 6-3, 6-4 and Jurgen Melzer and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi ousted No. 13 seeds Mate Pavic and Alexander Peya 6-4, 2-6, 7-5.