Nick Kyrgios defeated Canadian Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 6-4, in a 70-minute Marseille first round.
Kyrgios is playing his second tournament of the year and his first after reaching the Australian Open round of 32 where he lost against Tomas Berdych.
The Australian will now play in the second round Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili, who defeated fifth seed Gilles Simon.
Pospisil, who won the doubles tournament in Rotterdam partnering with Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, has had a slow start to the season as he only claimed one singles win during the 2016 campaign (Ivo Karlovic in Auckland) while also losing in the Australian Open first round against Alexander Zverev.
Only one spot in the ATP rankings separated the two players as Kyrgios is ranked 41 while Pospisil 42.
Kyrgios began the match making his intentions clear as he broke Pospisil’s serve in the first game of the set.
Both players remained steady holding their serves, but Kyrgios commanded with his serve and was able to close it out 6-4.
The Australian counterattacked the hard-hitting Canadian who was not able to come up with a break point during the first set.
The second began likewise as Kyrgios took his chance and broke his opponent’s serve quickly grabbing hold of the lead.
Pospisil would have a golden opportunity to come back, as he had his first two break points 15-40 trailing 3-4, but Kyrgios denied him with two commanding serves to preserve the lead which he would eventually convert in a first dominant round win over the Canadian.
Pospisil finished with twice as many aces (12), and both players had 82% of first serves points won.
This was the first career encounter between both players.
