Frances Tiafoe, in his first action since a second-round upset loss at the Australian Open, needed three sets to win his first-round match at the Dallas Open on Monday.
The fifth-seeded Maryland native got past Japan’s Taro Daniel 6-1, 3-6, 6-4.
Tiafoe registered the only service break of the final set for a 2-1 lead, then needed four match points over the final two games to seal the victory.
The only other seeded player in action on Monday, No. 8 Matteo Arnaldi of Italy, eliminated the United States’ Christopher Eubanks 6-3, 6-4.
Twenty-year-old qualifier Ethan Quinn beat 18-year-old wild-card entrant Trevor Svajda 6-4, 6-2 in a matchup of young U.S. players.
Elsewhere in the first round, Australia’s Rinky Hijikata got past France’s Adrian Mannarino 7-5, 6-3, and Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina beat U.S. qualifier Brandon Holt 6-1, 7-5.
ABN Amro Open
In a first-round matchup of former Grand Slam champions, second-seeded Daniil Medvedev of Russia rallied for a 6-7 (8), 6-4, 6-1 win over Stan Wawrinka in the first round at Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Wawrinka, who won the 2014 Australian Open, the 2015 French Open and the 2016 U.S. Open, saved two set points for Medvedev in the opening set — one at 4-5 and the other in the tiebreaker. The Swiss veteran then converted his fourth set point in the tiebreaker.
Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open champ, saved all three break points he faced in the second set, and Wawrinka never had a break point in the final set.
In other opening-round action, sixth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece routed French qualifier Harold Mayot 6-1, 7-5; eighth-seeded Hubert Hurkacz of Poland downed Italy’s Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 6-2; and Italian qualifier Mattia Bellucci topped a wild card, the Netherlands’ Mees Rottgering, 6-3, 6-2.
