Bautista Agut carries winning momentum, Cilic enters 3rd round

On-form Spanish sixth seed Roberto Bautista Agut continued his winning ways as he reached the second round of the ABN-AMRO World Tennis yesterday with a battling 7-6 (7-4), 1-6, 6-3 defeat of Portugal’s Joao Sousa.
The opening victory in slightly over two hours came three days after the 17th-ranked player won his second title of 2016 in Sofia, following up on his Auckland trophy in early January. He will next play Czech Jiri Vesely.
Bautista Agut improved to 13-2 in the season of his life.
“I’m off to my best start of a season and I hope to keep it up,” said the player who stood 0-2 against Sousa going in. “I’ve played well in my last matches and I want to continue like this and get as many wins as possible this week.”
His Portuguese opponent salvaged two match points before going down to defeat.
“It was not an easy match, I had a poor second set, but in the third I really lifted my level again. There were a lot of rallies and long points,” Bautista Agut said, Frenchman Jeremy Chardy advanced over Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-7 (9-11), 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) in another first-round game.
In the second round, second seed Marin Cilic played well in the important moments to advance past Luxembourg veteran Gilles Muller 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (9-7) in their first meeting.
Cilic, the 2014 runner-up to Tomas Berdych, has become the main title tip after the injury pullout of top seed Richard Gasquet.
Cilic came through in two hours and is now set to face German Philipp Kohlschreiber, a 6-4, 6-2 winner over Ivan Dodig.
Cilic is bidding for his 15th career title and said that passing a pair of tough tests in his opening rounds has been beneficial.
“I played better today than the first day. This was a very close match - two tiebreakers and no breaks,” the 13th-ranked Cilic said.
“In the second I was returning better and got into his service game.  But I had to stay mentally concentrated. I was also lucky in the tiebreakers.
“If you can have a couple of tough matches and get through them, you start to play better,” Cilic said. “I’ve adjusted to the tight situations. I’m always glad to win matches like this.”

Yesterday Richard Gasquet handed the another box office body blow as the top seed quit a day before his opening match with a groin strain.
The pullout came a week after Roger Federer was unable to play after undergoing knee surgery which will keep him off the ATP for at least a month.
Frenchman Gasquet said that he felt his pain the day before winning the Montpellier tournament for the third time at the weekend.
The 29-year-old ranked 13th came to Rotterdam in hopes he could heal but said that he is also now feeling ill and had no choice but to quit the indoor event.
Marin Cilic, the second seed, takes the role of favourite at the tournament where he finished runner-up in 2014.
Gasquet said that he hopes to be able to play in the Marseille event later this month.
“Of course I’m disappointed, I wanted to play here,” Gasquet said. “It’s impossible for me to play.”