AUSTRIAN wildcard Jurij Rodionov has stunned eighth seed Canadian Denis Shapovalov in a straight sets win, to advance through to the second round of the Erste Bank Open. The match lasted 87 minutes as the world number 153  won just his second match for the year. Both players have strong serves, but Shapovalov’s went missing with 10 double faults to two, whilst the pair served up five aces apiece in the match for a 6-4 7-5 result to Rodionov.

Both Rodionov and Shapovalov are 21-years-old though the latter has built a much bigger CV thus far. His inconsistent serving hurt him in the end as the Austrian took full advantage off the second serve, winning 62 per cent of Shapovalov’s second serves, and 68 per cent of his own. Despite coming close in both sets, Shapovalov dropped three service games to one, and eventually bowed out of the tournament to put his ATP Finals hopes in real danger. A good run in Vienna would have put the Canadian in contention for a top nine spot this year, especially with Gael Monfils losing his first round match – which would have seen Shapovalov leapfrog him with a win – and Matteo Berrettini and Diego Schwartzman both not competing in the tournament.

For Rodionov, he now advances into the Round of 16 to take on the winner of Aljaz Bedene and Daniel Evans. The news was not as good for fellow Austrian wildcard, Dennis Novak who suffered a tight three-set loss to South African Kevin Anderson. Whilst the former top five player is not what he used to be after injury kept him out of recent times, he was able to take care of the 92nd ranked Novak, winning 6-7 6-4 7-6 in two hours and 44 minutes of match play. Serving 18 aces, Anderson was hard to break – though it did happen once from the only opportunity – whilst Anderson broke twice to always put pressure on the Austrian. It came right down to the nail-biting deciding tiebreak as Anderson got up 8-6 in that third set to win in an epic thriller.

Monfils’ injury-affected year continued with another retirement from his first round match in Vienna. The enigmatic Frenchman lasted just nine games before pulling the pin against Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, going down 6-1 2-0 in 39 minutes before he had to retire. In that time, Carreno Busta won 16 of 21 points on serve, and Monfils only won 11 off his own serve, producing seven double faults in five games and clearly looking in trouble from early on. Carreno Busta will now take on Anderson in the second round of the tournament.

In the other results, Borna Coric made it 4-0 in his head-to-head against Taylor Fritz, defeating the American 6-4 6-4 in an hour and 29 minutes. Fritz served 12 aces to eight, but Coric’s consistency off his second serve – winning 71 per cent of the points to 48 per cent – was the difference – as well as breaking twice from three opportunities whilst saving all three of Fritz’s chances. Coric sets his sights on a likely Novak Djokovic Round of 16 encounter, with the world number one taking on Filip Krajinovic tomorrow. Lastly, fifth seed Andrey Rublev rolled on to easily take care of Slovakian Norbert Gombos 6-3 6-2 in just 60 minutes, serving 11 aces without a double-fault and only dropping 10 points on serve. He broke three times from four chances and did not face a break point in a dominant performance.

Tomorrow’s schedule of play at Vienna sees an all-Serbian battle between Djokovic and Krajinovic following on from a massive clash with Grigor Dimitrov and Karen Khachanov. At night, Dominic Thiem takes on lucky loser Vitaliy Sachko following Kei Nishikori‘s late withdrawal from the tournament, and Cristian Garin locks horns with Stan Wawrinka. Nishikori was one of three players to pull out at late notice, with Cologne finalist Diego Schwartzman and Antwerp finalist Alex de Minaur also pulling out allowing multiple lucky losers a second chance in Austria.