Alexander Zverev continued his impressive start to US Open 2018 with a comfortable 6-4 6-4 6-2 second-round win over Nicholas Mahut.
The German, who is bidding to win his first Grand Slam title, served brilliantly throughout the match as he fired down ten aces and won 75% of all points behind his serve.
Such dominance on serve made it an easy day on court for Zverev. He broke Mahut once in the first set and twice in each of the next two sets to breeze through in straight sets.
“This was always the Grand Slam that I didn’t play my best,” the World No.4 said. “Game-wise, I never felt comfortable here. Finally I do.”
“I feel like I’m playing well. (Mahut) was a tough opponent. He had a few matches here already. He still knows how to play singles even though his ranking dropped a little bit.”
Fognini suffers embarrassing loss
Things did not go so well for Fabio Fognini. The 14th seed made an incredible 78 unforced errors during his disastrous 6-1 4-6 6-4 6-1 loss to John Millman.
The Italian was not the only seed to fall. 12th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, who reached the semi-final last year, slogged away for three hours against Joao Sousa but eventually had to retire due to heat exhaustion when he was 2-0 down in the fifth set.
Meanwhile, 23rd seed Hyeon Chung, who reached the Australian Open semi-final in January, crashed out 7-6(5) 6-2 6-3 to Mikhail Kukushkin.
But it was not all bad news for the seeded players. 10th seed David Goffin performed well to beat Robin Haase 6-2 6-7(1) 6-3 6-2, 13th seed Diego Schwartzmann took down Jaume Munar 6-0 6-2 5-7 6-2 and 17th seed Lucas Pouille held off a strong challenge from Marcos Baghdatis to go through 6-7(4) 6-4 6-4 6-3.
