Ramos-Vinolas Sweeps Into Marrakech Second Round

Top seed and 2012 finalist Albert Ramos-Vinolas lost just two of his first-service points (20/22) to beat Moroccan wild card Amine Ahouda 6-1, 6-2 in 68 minutes on Tuesday at the Grand Prix Hassan II. Ramos-Vinolas, who has a 1-5 record in ATP World Tour finals, is 112-95 lifetime in clay-court matches according to the FedEx ATP Reliability Index (166-186 overall).

“I’m happy with my match today,” said Ramos-Vinolas. “I haven’t a played a tournament for a month and it feels great to be back. I’m looking forward to the clay court swing and playing a lot of tournaments.” He will next play Russian qualifier Alexey Vatutin, who recorded his first tour-level match win in beating Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

 Watch Live On TennisTV

 Watch Full Match Replays

There were two seeds — No. 5 Robin Haase and No. 7 Alexandr Dolgopolov — who made early exits at the ATP World Tour 250 clay-court tournament. Former World No. 13 Dolgpolov has missed the past nine weeks due to a right wrist injury.

Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Mirza Basic hit nine aces in scraping past Haase 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in two hours and 15 minutes, will Italian qualifier Andrea Arnaboldi saved all six break points he faced to defeat Dolgopolov 6-2, 6-3 in 79 minutes.

Elsewhere, two former champions from Spain — 2011-12 titlist Pablo Andujar and 2014 winner Guillermo Garcia-Lopez — booked their spots in the second round. Andujar knocked out Belarusian lucky loser Ilya Ivashka 6-3, 7-5 and Garcia-Lopez overcame French qualifier Calvin Hemery 6-2, 6-2.

Second-seeded Briton Kyle Edmund was leading Jiri Vesely, a semi-finalist in Morocco for the past three years, 5-0 after 17 minutes of play when the Czech retired due to injury.