TORONTO – Italy’s Fabio Fognini needed all of his skills to survive into the second round of the ATP Toronto Masters as the Italian showman beat Jan-Lennard Struff 6-7 (2/7), 6-2, 6-4.
An exhausted Fognini tossed a racquet over his shoulder into the nearby crowd after his effort, lasting almost two and a half hours, against the 46th-ranked German.
Along the way, the unseeded Italian was seen by both the doctor and a physio in the second set before drawing a warning for time wasting as he went off court after levelling at a set apiece.
Fognini trailed 3-1 in the final set, but fought back with a break for 4-4 after Struff saved five break points but could not manage on a sixth.
A double-fault from the German two games later gave Fognini a match point, which he converted without hesitation.
Fognini finished with 26 winners while between them the pair committed nearly 90 unforced errors. Out of a cumulative total of 25 break points, only nine were converted.
The win earned Fognini a contest with fourth seed Andrey Rublev, who has won the pair’s matches at the ATP Cup and Wimbledon this season, AFP reported.
Olympic medalist Marin Cilic booked a second-round spot against sixth seed Casper Ruud with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
The Croatian, who combined at the Tokyo Games with compatriot Ivan Dodig to win the silver medal in an historic all-countryman final against Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic, will serve as the summer’s first hardcourt opponent for Norway’s Ruud.
The Scandinavian earned a European clay hat trick after Wimbledon with consecutive titles in Bastad, Gstaad and Kitzbuehel.
Ruud won their only prior encounter on clay in Rome last season.
The 39th-ranked Cilic, the 2014 US Open champion, finished his defeat of Ramos-Vinolas in just under two and a quarter hours, firing 34 winners, including 13 aces.
But he was weighed down by 41 unforced errors in a match where he regained control in the final set to advance over his left-handed rival on a second match point.
Halle winner Ugo Humbert of France defeated Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego 6-3, 6-4 for a straight-forward win into the second round and a date against new world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The top eight seeds all have byes into the second round at the US Open hardcourt tuneup event.
American Sebastian Korda was forced to withdraw with lower back pain, handing a place in the draw to qualifying lucky loser Frances Tiafoe.
Djokovic out of Cincinnati
Novak Djokovic pulled out of the Western & Southern Open, meaning the next time he will be in action will be as he tries to complete a calendar-year Grand Slam at the US Open.
The top-ranked Djokovic wrote on social media that he needs “a bit longer to recover and recuperate after quite a taxing journey from Australia to Tokyo.”
He is 21-0 in Grand Slam action in 2021, winning the titles at the Australian Open on hard courts in February, the French Open on clay courts in June and Wimbledon on grass courts in July.
No man had even won the first three major tennis championships – let alone all four – in one season since Rod Laver’s true Grand Slam in 1969.
After Wimbledon, Djokovic went to the Tokyo Olympics in pursuit of a Golden Slam – a singles gold medal to go along with all four major trophies in a single season – but he did not manage to collect a medal of any color there.
The 34-year-old from Serbia lost to Germany’s Alexander Zverev in the singles semifinals, then to Spain’s Pablo Carreño Busta in the bronze medal match.
“I just didn´t deliver. The level of tennis dropped. Also due to exhaustion – mentally and physically,” Djokovic said after the latter defeat. “I gave it all, whatever I had left in the tank, which was not so much.”
Sinner outlasts McDonald
Mexico’s Abraham Ancer birdied the second playoff hole to win the World Golf Championships Italy’s Jannik Sinner, the ATP’s top-ranked teen, captured his third career title, outlasting American Mackenzie McDonald 7-5, 4-6, 7-5 in the Citi Open final.
World number 24 Sinner, a 19-year-old who won at Sofia last year and Melbourne in January, took the top prize of $350,755 on the Washington hardcourts.
McDonald, ranked 107th and playing in his first ATP final, denied Sinner on 16 of 21 break chances, 10 in the first set, and battled from 5-2 down to level the final set before falling.
Sinner became the youngest ATP 500-level champion in 146 events since the category was created in 2009, breaking the mark 20-year-old Alexander Zverev set at Washington in 2017.
Eight days shy of his 20th birthday, Sinner became the third-youngest Washington champion after 18-year-old Andy Roddick in 2001 and 19-year-old Juan Martin del Potro in 2008.
Sinner, who made the last eight at the 2020 French Open, was the first Italian finalist in the US capital event’s 52-year history.
Sinner will jump to a career-high 15th in Monday’s rankings while McDonald will rise to 64th.
In the third set, Sinner broke for a 2-0 edge when McDonald netted a backhand volley and later saved three break points to hold for a 4-1 lead.
Sinner held again to 5-2 on a service winner, then dropped two match points in the eighth game – Sinner netting a forehand and McDonald hitting a forehand winner – and made four unforced errors in the ninth, allowing McDonald to break back and hold to reach 5-5.
Sinner held at love on his ninth ace and broke to claim the match after two hours and 53 minutes when McDonald netted a backhand.
Sinner, broken only three times in his first four matches, was broken three times in the first two sets by the 26-year-old American.
Sinner broke on an overhead smash for a 3-1 lead, then saved three break points in the next game before McDonald ripped a forehand down the line winner to break back to 3-2.
After breaking at love in the sixth game, Sinner served for the set in the ninth game, but McDonald broke again on a forehand winner.
McDonald saved six break points in a tense 10-minute 10th game before holding to pull level.
Sinner held at love to 6-5 and broke again in the 12th game, although McDonald denied him on break points with two aces up the middle, a service winner and a forehand winner before netting a backhand to finally surrender the set.
In the second set, McDonald saved two break points to hold for 3-3, then broke when Sinner netted a backhand and held twice to force a third.
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