Tomic beats Cilic at Montreal tennis

FP – Australian Bernard Tomic beat Marin Cilic in straight sets on Wednesday in the second round of the ATP Montreal Masters.

Tomic downed the Croatian sixth seed 6-3 6-4 to advance to the third round and set up a showdown with French 10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut.

Rafael Nadal made an encouraging start to his US Open preparations, recovering to defeat Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 on another weather-affected day.

The seventh seed had to wait for two hours before his match at the Uniprix stadium could begin after morning rain was followed by a towel-drying effort and repairs to bubbles on the rubberised surface.

But once down to business, Nadal made the most of his opening contest on the cement, winning the first set in a tiebreaker and sweeping the second to reach the third round and a date with Mikhail Youzhny, who beat French ninth seed Gilles Simon 6-1 6-4.

Nadal is playing in Canada for the first time since 2013. The world No.9 improved to 40-12 for the season.

Japanese fourth seed Kei Nishikori, winner at the weekend of the Washington title and jumping to a career-high fourth in the rankings, started 6-3 6-3 over Spain’s Pablo Andujar in 70 minutes, winning his 50th match at the Masters 1000 level.

Nishikori made a successful comeback last week after a long-running thigh injury and said his current fitness was good.

“I’ve been feeling pretty good. After winning the title, you have to feel good. My tennis is getting better,” he said.

“I didn’t start quite well, but it was windy. We had a little wait, so it wasn’t easy in the beginning. But after a couple of games, I was playing well, concentrating well, too.

“I’m very happy with my tennis today.”

American Jack Sock sprang an upset on troubled 14th seed Grigor Dimitrov, who went down 5-7 7-6 (7-5) 7-5.

Over recent weeks, the Bulgarian – once tipped as a future Roger Federer – lost his Australian coach Roger Rasheed and Russian girlfriend Maria Sharapova.

In other second-round results, Jeremy Chardy of France beat Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-2, Belgian 13th seed David Goffin downed American Sam Querrey 6-4 6-4, and Gilles Muller accounted for Frenchman Gael Monfils 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7-4).

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