Groth, Thompson fall in Washington
Sam Groth and Jordan Thompson battled hard but ultimately fell in tight matches at the ATP Citi Open in Washington DC.
Washington, DC, USA, 20 July 2016 | AAP/tennis.com.au
Sam Groth has been bumped from the first round of the Citi Open in Washington, losing a tight clash 7-6(3) 7-6(5) to American Brian Baker.
Later on Tuesday in the American capital, Jordan Thompson fell in a third-set tiebreak to 11th seed Alexandr Dolgopolov.
In the second-round clash, Thompson did well to insert himself back into the match in the second set, but after falling behind 4-1 in the final tiebreak, he was unable to recover.
Dolgopolov sealed a 6-4 1-6 7-6(4) victory to set up a last-16 clash against either Sam Querrey or Bjorn Fratangelo.
Groth was dominant on his own serve, but unable to break Baker’s.
The Aussie sent down 18 aces – double Baker’s tall – and did not face one break point in the match, yet won just 22 points on return of serve.
It continues a horror year for 28-year-old, whose tour-level main-draw record has now dropped to 4-14; he has also fallen 101 places in the rankings since August last year and now sits at No.154.
Fellow-Australians John Millman, James Duckworth and Jordan Thompson each progressed to the second round of the tournament on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), while Bernard Tomic had a first-round bye.