Tuesday continued with first round matches at the Dallas Open with expected victories and some surprising close calls. 3rd seed and world #9 Tommy Paul prevailed in a tight 3 set match against fellow American Jenson Brooksby; after snagging the first set in a close tiebreak Brooksby kept his nerve for the first few games of the second set but Paul came back with a break and took the second set comfortably. All momentum was going Paul’s way heading into the decider, but Jenson held strong going into the latter half of the set heading to 4-4 when Tommy got the final break of this match and finally serving for it. Paul ended up getting tested but came through a tough first round 6-7 (6-8) 6-3 6-4.
With other seeds fighting for a spot in the second round there was a hard-fought win for TCU alum and former world #8 Cameron Norrie against American and 7th seed Alex Michelsen. After snagging the first set 6-2 it seemed the young American was well on his way to the second round, but Norrie had other plans, after blasting through a second set tiebreak the match was in Norrie’s hands and ended up soaring into the second round after a 2-6 7-6 (7-1) 6-1 victory and ending Michelsen’s strong start to the year.
Beginning the night session world #14 and 4th seed Ben Shelton blitzed through his first-round match against Aleksandar Vukic in a 62-minute match coming out to 6-3 6-3 to fly through to the second round in hopes of doing better than his 2024 semifinal run this year. With Marcos Giron withdrawing minutes before the match 2nd seed Casper Ruud ended up having to get through a tough first round against lucky loser James Duckworth in a tight three setter, although Duckworth was 1/11 on break points, he was able to snag a crucial one in the second set to take it into a deciding third where Ruud ended up taking it 6-2. After taking the first and dropping the second Casper Ruud is into the second-round after a 7-5 4-6 6-2 victory.
Going into Wednesday there are still plenty of first round matches to finish and look forward to including world #4 Taylor Fritz and former world #4 Kei Nishikori among players looking to start their bid toward round two.
