Top seed Gilles Simon of France was upset by Britain’s Aljaz Bedene, while Taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lu downed fifth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in straight sets and two other high seeds survived upset bids on Tuesday during second-round play at the Winston-Salem Open.
Lu beat Spain’s Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 6-3.
Bedene, ranked 58th in the world, battled through tiebreakers in all three sets and match point in the third against the 11th-ranked Simon to win 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (8/6).
Meanwhile, 15th-ranked Kevin Anderson of South Africa, the No. 2 seed, beat Kazahkstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. Third-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, ranked 19th, downed Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 at the Wake Forest Tennis Center in the final tuneup for next week’s US Open.
Earlier in the day, Russia’s Teymuraz Gabashvili beat Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/3); while Italy’s Simone Bolelli needed just over two-and-a-half hours to defeat seventh-seeded Sam Querrey of the US, 7-6 (9/7), 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (11/9).
“[Simon] was returning well, and I was returning well,” Bedene said.
“We did not have so much advantage with our serve. Sometimes there were games (40)-zero, sometimes there were long ones. It was a close match — three tiebreaks. I don’t think I’ve ever played on the ATP Tour three tiebreaks,” Bedene added.
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