The Spanish Pablo Carreño, new champion of the 1,000 Montreal Masters, paid this Tuesday for his thirteen double faults committed against the Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic with the elimination in the first round of the Cincinnati tournament.
After being crowned in Montreal against the Polish Hubert Hurkacz with the first Masters 1,000 title of his career, Carreño had won the first set 6-1 against Kecmanovic, but he got stuck with the service in the second and third set and ended up falling 1-6, 7-5 and 7-6(4).
On court 3 of the Lindner Family Tennis Center, the player from Gijón gave up after a battle of two hours and 55 minutes and Kecmanovic will face Italian Jannik Sinner, tenth seed in the tournament, in the next round.
Despite getting more than twice as many winners as Kecmanovic (69 to 34), Carreño ended up paying his thirteen double faults, eleven of them in the final two sets and up to seven in the third.
Despite these difficulties, the Spaniard had a break in the lead in the decisive set and seemed to manage to tame the momentum of a Kecmanovic who, despite not having continuity, never stopped fighting for every point.
After leveling the duel with a 7-5, he recovered from a 2-4 loss and saved three break balls with 5-5 on the scoreboard that could have changed the history of the match.
He wasted his first match point at 6-5, but sealed his victory by winning the tie-break 7-4 to meet Sinner in the second round.
The elimination of Carreño joins those of his compatriots Albert Ramos, who could not with Fabio Fognini, and Alejandro Davidovich, who surrendered to the serve of the Australian Nick Kyrgios.
Spanish tennis is still at stake in Cincinnati with Rafa Nadal, who returns to this tournament five years after the last time, Carlos Alcaraz, Paula Badosa and Garbiñe Muguruza.
