Sam Groth played his last ever singles match at Melbourne Park today after he lost 6-4 3-6 7-6(3) to top seed Taylor Fritz.
The Australian fired down 14 aces but was edged out in a 2 hour and 11 minute tussle against the American. Groth will now play the Men’s doubles and mixed doubles event with Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur respectively in his final tournament of his career. Fritz will now play Mathias Bourgue in the second qualifying round.
However there was some Aussie success in the form of controversial Australian Bernard Tomic. The former Grand Slam Quarter-Finalist eased past Frenchman, Vincent Millot 6-1 6-3 to advance to the next round. The unpredictable Australian will now face American Tommy Paul, who battled past Slovenian Blaz Rola 6-7(3) 7-6(2) 7-6(5).
Many seeds continued to struggle on Day One of Australian Open Qualifying as 18th seed Adrian Menendez-Maceiras crashed out to Canada’s Frank Dancevic, 3-6 7-6(8) 6-3 in a titanic battle. While 24th seed Norbert Gombos survived a battle with Australian Maverick Banes winning 6-7(5) 6-4 7-6(5).
Other key results include 13th seed Ruben Bemelmans overcome a stubborn Kamil Majchrzak 7-5 5-7 7-5 while 21st seed Stefano Travaglia also had to work hard for his victory over Nikola Milojevic 6-4 6-7(5) 6-4.
Reilly Opelka also failed to survive the first day as he was defeated by Christian Harrison, brother of Ryan, in two tiebreaks. While there were comfortable wins for Ernesto Escobedo and Bjorn Fratangelo to lead the American charge.
Meanwhile Vasek Pospisil lead the Canadian charge with a 7-5 7-6(5) victory over Italy’s Lorenzo Giustino. However it wasn’t all bad news for Italians with Lorenzo Sonego, Salvatore Caruso and Stefano Napolitano all gaining victories and a passage into the next round.
