Cilic, Albot Among Early Paris Winners

Croatia’s Marin Cilic booked his place in the Rolex Paris Masters second round on Monday with a 7-6(5), 6-4 victory over Hubert Hurkacz of Poland in one hour and 38 minutes. Cilic, who reached his first ATP Tour semi-final of the season two weeks ago at the VTB Kremlin Cup (l. to Rublev), will next play No. 16 seed Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland in the second round.

Cilic had an exceptional day on serve, particularly in the second set, when 63 per cent of his first serves went unreturned. For the match, he won 86 per cent of first-serve points.

First-Serve Placement & Statistics

Cilic directed his forehand to Hurkacz’s forehand 44 per cent of the time, almost as much as he placed it to the Pole’s backhand (46%). But that could potentially be explained by how the players utilised their backhands.

Cilic was content to keep his backhand crosscourt (65%) compared to down the line (12%), while Hurkacz went down the line to Cilic’s forehand 36 per cent of the time, triple the Croat’s rate. That left Hurkacz’s forehand wing open, leading to Cilic going crosscourt with his forehand as much as he did.

Forehand & Backhand Placement

Former World No. 3 Milos Raonic earned his first victory since the first round of the Coupe Rogers in August, ousting qualifier Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-2. The Canadian struck 14 aces and lost only one first-serve point (28/29) en route to a 63-minute triumph.

Raonic will next face fifth seed Dominic Thiem, against whom he holds a 2-1 FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead. Earlier this year, Thiem defeated Raonic in a two-hour, 32-minute battle in the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open.

Borna Coric defeated Fernando Verdasco in straight sets at the Rolex Paris Masters four years ago. But Verdasco got his revenge on Monday, eliminating the Croat 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 after one hour and 59 minutes. The Spanish lefty, who has now won at least one match at this ATP Masters 1000 event in 10 of his past 12 appearances, will next play sixth seed Alexander Zverev, who is battling for one of the two remaining spots at the Nitto ATP Finals.

Moldova’s Radu Albot avenged his recent loss to Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili at the Rolex Shanghai Masters with a 6-3, 6-2 win over 72 minutes against his doubles partner. He now challenges Italian lucky loser Andreas Seppi, who came into the main draw after 2011 champion Roger Federer, last week’s Swiss Indoors Basel titlist, pulled out.

Chile’s Cristian Garin won his Paris debut with a 6-4, 6-3 victory against Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas to earn a second-round clash against No. 15 seed John Isner, and German Jan-Lennard Struff eliminated Japanese qualifier Yoshihito Nishioka 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 to set a second-round match against defending champion Karen Khachanov, the eighth seed.

Hawkeye data and visuals courtesy ATP Media