Staff Reporter.
Third-seeded Casper Ruud and former champion Cameron Norrie reached the third round of the Indian Wells WTA and ATP Masters 1000 with straight sets victories on Friday.
For Ruud, a 6-2, 6-3 victory over former top-10 Argentinian Diego Schwartzman was a confidence-boosting win in a season in which he had so far failed to advance past the second round in three tour-level tournaments he had played.
For Norrie, however, a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Taiwanese qualifier Wu Tung-lin marked a continuation of the form that saw him reach finals last month in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro where he fell to Carlos Alcaraz in the first and beat Alcaraz in the second.
Schwartzman had won five of his eight prior meetings with Ruud, but the Norwegian, currently ranked fourth in the world, had little trouble against him on Friday, breaking him twice in the first set and once in the second to polish off the victory in an hour and 28 minutes.
“I lost to Diego here a couple of years ago so it was nice to get revenge,” said Ruud, a finalist at the French Open and US Open last year who was bundled out of the Australian Open in the second round in January.
Ruud said. “I’ve lost to him many times, so you really need to be focused and on your ‘A’ game. You need to play a lot of balls and you can’t do too many unforced errors he will beat you that way.
“The goal was to try to play heavy and sometimes kind of mix up a little bit, come to the net and luckily today somehow that went well for me.
“Typically it doesn’t go so well when I go to the net but today was better,” added Ruud, who next faces Chile’s Cristian Garin, a 6-4, 6-0 winner over Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka.
TSITSIPAS STUNNED
Unseeded Australian Jordan Thompson shocked third-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6, (7/0), 4-6, 7-6 (7/5).
Thompson, ranked 87th in the world, notched his second career victory over a top-10 player when a blistering forehand from Tsitsipas landed just wide.
“I’m thankful that last ball was out – I thought it was in,” Thompson said.
For Tsitsipas it was another setback in the wake of his run to the Australian Open final in January.
He departed Melbourne energized despite falling to Novak Djokovic in the title match, but shortly thereafter suffered a shoulder injury.
Playing his first tournament since a second-round exit at Rotterdam, Tsitsipas admitted earlier this week that with his shoulder still troubling him he didn’t have high hopes of a third Masters 1000 crown.
Meanwhile Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka eased into the third round of the Indian Wells WTA and ATP Masters 1000 on Friday with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Evgeniya Rodina.