Lorenzi Ousts Home Favourite In Sydney

Jordan Thompson made good use of a wild card at the 2017 Sydney International, winning his first-round match before falling in a battle against the fifth seed.

Italian veteran Paolo Lorenzi had no intention of letting the home favourite advance to the second round this year. The 36-year-old defeated Thompson 7-6(5), 6-4 to set up a second-round match against top seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

The World No. 43 was broken in his first service game and faced a break point in his second, but steadied the ship from there. After claiming an intense first-set tie-break, the right-hander sprinted to a 3-0 lead in the second set. Despite failing to serve out the match at 5-3, Lorenzi broke his opponent a third time to clinch the victory.

If that was complicated, few words could describe Alexandr Dolgopolov’s 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-5 first-round win against Viktor Troicki.

The Ukrainian held match point at 6/5 in the second-set tie-break, but could not convert and he was soon behind a break at 2-3 in the third set. But Dolgopolov managed to get right back on serve and after saving break point at 4-4, he broke for the triumph at 6-5 to end the two-hour, 21-minute clash and set up a meeting against fourth seed Fabio Fognini.

The only seed in action on the first day of play was seventh seed Damir Dzumhur. The Bosnian got back on track after a season-opening loss at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, eliminating Jan-Lennard Struff 6-1, 6-4. Dzumhur will play the winner of Fernando Verdasco and Alex de Minaur, fresh off his dream run to the Brisbane semi-finals.

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