Miami Open 2018: Shapovalov takes straight-sets victory over Dzumhur

Rudi Schuller

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Miami Open 2018: Shapovalov takes straight-sets victory over Dzumhur image

After struggling at times during his maiden match at the 2018 Miami Open, Denis Shapovalov responded with a straight-sets victory in the round of 64 against Damir Dzumhur on Saturday.

The 18-year-old took 72 minutes to earn the 6-1, 7-5 result, downing the world No. 30 in style.

Shapovalov cruised through the first set, serving up six aces and winning 100 percent of his first-serve points along the way. The teenager also managed to convert a pair of break points as Dzumhur had no answer for his younger opponent in the early going.

The Bosnian would provide much more of a challenge in the second set, with Shapovalov looking to end the match early. Dzumhur began to figure out the Canadian's service game, leading to a good back-and-forth set as the players battled for superiority.

Dzumhur took Shapovalov to the brink in the second set, pushing the score to 5-5 before the Canadian took over the match for good.

With Saturday's victory, Shapovalov advances to the third round to face world No. 14 Sam Querrey.

Shapovalov, Chung advance in doubles action

After a few hours of rest, Shapovalov returned to the court for his opening round doubles match with South Korean teammate Hyeon Chung.

The pair of rising stars, who faced each other in the group stage of the Next Gen Finals last November, edged Filip Krajinović and Shapovalov's singles opponent Damir Dzumhur 6-3, 6-7, 10-2.

After splitting the first two sets, the match came down to a ten-point super tiebreaker, which Shapovalov and Chung took control of from the start and never looked back. 

The duo combined for six aces in the match and were only broken once in 11 service games. 

Shapovalov and Chung advance to take on the Colombian team of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the round of 16 on Monday (11:00 a.m. ET). 

 

Rudi Schuller