Denis Kudla came out on top against fellow American Mitchell Krueger on Monday at the Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open, advancing to the second round with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-0 win.
Next up for Kudla is second seed and defending champion Ivo Karlovic. Kudla leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head against the Croatian 2-1, including an opening-round win in Newport in 2011.
Dennis Novikov defeated last year’s Newport quarter-finalist Marco Chiudinelli 6-1, 6-3, for his first ATP World Tour main draw win of 2017. The American will play seventh seed Tennys Sandgren or qualifier Frank Dancevic in the next round.
A third American, Bjorn Fratangelo, advanced Monday as he recorded a 7-6(2), 1-6, 6-4 win over eighth seed Illya Marchenko in just under two hours and 19 minutes. Fratangelo capitalised on five of his nine break points, while Marchenko went six for 15 on his opportunities.
Peter Gojowczyk moved past reigning NCAA champion Thai-Son Kwiatkowski 6-3, 6-3. Kwiatkowski was making his ATP World Tour main draw debut. Next up for Gojowczyk is fifth seed Victor Estrella Burgos or Konstantin Kravchuk.
Two #NextGenATP Americans, Taylor Fritz and Stefan Kozlov, fell in their first-round matches. Fritz lost to Tobias Kamke 6-3, 6-3, while Kozlov was defeated by Adrian Menendez-Maceiras 6-2, 7-6(5).
“I had to be ready on every single point because I know especially on grass courts that one or two points can make the whole difference, and the match can go this way or the other way,” said Kamke, a former Newport semi-finalist. “I tried to be calm all the time and tried to focus on the things I was trying to do. He was maybe going for too much here and there, so that was the difference.”
Qureshi/Ram Sprint To Victory
Top seeds Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Rajeev Ram needed just 33 minutes to ease past Estrella Burgos and Roberto Maytin 6-0, 6-0. Qureshi/Ram lost 14 points in the match, which was the shortest win not to end in a retirement since the 2015 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters (Haase/Klaasen d. Mannarino/Rosol in 28 minutes).
