Bernard Tomic, Australia’s sole representative at the Japan Open, has been eliminated in the first round in a straight-sets loss to third-seeded Canadian Milos Raonic.
Tomic went down 7-6 (7-3) 6-3, as Raonic slammed home 22 aces, to join the likes of top seed Stan Wawrinka and French star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as a first-round loser.
Japan’s Tatsuma Ito followed the winning example of compatriot Kei Nishikori as the world number 103-ranked player dumped Wawrinka 7-5 6-2 on Tuesday.
Ito, a finalist at a Challenger event a fortnight ago in Turkey, showed no fear as he imposed his game on the Swiss world No.4 who won the Australian Open in January.
US Open finalist and last week’s Kuala Lumpur ATP winner Nishikori is seeded fourth at the home event he won in 2012 and opens his singles campaign on Wednesday.
Wawrinka stands next in the queue to qualify as the fourth man into the eight-player World Tour Finals in London in November.
The Swiss was puzzling through what went wrong with his game in the 79-minute loss, which will make him wait another week to likely enter the year-end field, at the Shanghai Open.
“It was certainly not a good day at the office. I’m not happy about the result,” said Wawrinka, who smashed a racquet in his frustration on court.
“I have to see what is wrong and try to change it before Shanghai.
“It was a bad match from my side. I felt slow on the court and was not moving well. It’s tough to say exactly what went wrong.
“I’ve seen Ito play and knew his game. I allowed him to play aggressively and he had a good match. It’s tough to say what happened to me but I have to work it out and make corrections before Shanghai.”
Ailing French No.5 Tsonga lost to Poland’s Michel Przysiezny 4-6 7-5 7-6 (11-9) after nearly two and a half hours.
Tsonga, the 2009 champion, said he has been suffering for three days from a stomach virus and was lacking energy.
“I came here expecting to play good tennis. But it was not enough for me today, I didn’t have enough energy to compete,” he said.
“This virus has bothered me. I tried anyway to do my best on court, I gave everything but I was too tired.”
Fourth seed Nishikori will take his growing confidence into the concluding weeks, with hopes of becoming the first Asian man to qualify for the season final.
“I’m sixth now (in the season points race) and I’m really hoping to qualify,” he said after a doubles win.
The Japanese player said it was the first year he had the chance to reach the final.
“It’s something that every player wants to play. I’m happy about standing sixth but I have a lot of work over the next weeks,” he said.
Nishikori will open his singles campaign against Croatian Ivan Dodig on Wednesday in front of his home crowd.
