The first round of the Western and Southern Open continued on Monday morning when Sergiy Stakhovsky of the Ukraine took on Bernard Tomic from Australia on Court 6.
In the first set, both men held to start off the match. Tomic then broke and consolidated for a 3-1 lead early on. He would not stop there, as he also won the fifth game to put him up 4-1. Through the first five games, Tomic had won four points on aces, while Stakhovsky had not hit an ace and had a lone double fault.
Stakhovsky then stormed back to win three of the next four games to make it 5-4 in favor of Tomic but was still down a break. During that stretch, the Ukrainian hit three aces. The match was put on hold because of a rain delay and thunderstorms. When play finally resumed at 3:23 ET, Tomic won the final game and won the first set by a 6-4 score.
The second set was very much like the first set where the players won alternate games, before Tomic pulled away. They both held in their opening two service games before Tomic won the three consecutive games to give him the 5-2 lead. After a hold from the Ukrainian, the Aussie won the final game of the set to win the set 6-3 and win the match.
Both players committed two double faults in the match, but Stakhovsky had one more ace than Tomic did. Both of Tomic’s double faults came in the second set.
Tomic now advances to the second round of the tournament, where he will play Alexander Dolgopolov, who received a first round bye after making it into the tournament via qualifying and was given Kei Nishikori's spot in the second round due to the injury sustained by the Japan number one.
Tomic is 3-5 against Dolgopolov, with their most recent meeting coming in Memphis when Tomic won 6-1, 7-5. That was their first meeting since 2009.