Cincinnati Round One

With the withdrawal of seeded players Roger Federer, Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic, Cincinnati organisers strangely allowed byes for the lucky losers in qualifying who replaced them.

So the top five seeds and Janko Tipsarevic (ranked 69), Christian Harrison (240) and Thomas Fabbiano (85) receive free passes to the second round. Losing your qualifying in Cincinnati brings ridiculous rewards.

The first round is complete and some results are surprising.

Injury has troubled the recent progress of Nick Kyrgios but he had little bother in his opener against ninth seed David Goffin.  Dominant on serve, losing only 3 points on his first delivery in the first set and just 1 in the second Goffin was a passenger in the match.

Nick faced a mere four break points all match, all saved.  The 6-2 6-3 result keeps the hopes of a fine career alight.

Montreal quarter finalist Kevin Anderson lost to qualifier Alexandr Dolgopolov, and other unseeded players were successful:

Jared Donaldson knocked out 12th seed Roberto Bautista Agut

Yuichi Sugita defeated Jack Sock (13) in straight sets

Juan Martin del Potro won the deciding set 6-0 against Tomas Berdych (10)

Of course del Potro is a much better player than his ranking of 30 suggests.

Again the top twenty ranked women have all turned up for the Premier 5 Cincinnati event - except the pregnant Serena.

The top eight seeds have had first round byes but we have seen exits from some of the others already.

Daria Gavrilova defeated 13th seed Kristina Mladenovic in two contrasting sets.

The opener was totally one way traffic, Dasha winning almost everything on her first serve and trashing the French player's efforts from the line.

To win 6-0 was amazing and not surprising was the comeback from Mladenovic in set two.

The returning of Gavrilova's serve became more efficient and both players broke each other twice meaning a tie break would decide the set.  Before the breaker Dasha had the chance to serve for the match at 5-4 but Mladenovic was back in the match at that stage and broke for her second time.

An even tie break was ended with a poor French forehand and the Aussie was second round bound.

Other seeds to fumble their opening rounds were:

Roland Garros champ Jelena Ostapenko, losing to qualifier Aleksandra Krunic, ranked 85.

Agnieszka Radwanska, bounced out by big server Julia Georges, ranked 37 but playing above her ranking in recent tournaments.

Simona Halep (2) and Johanna Konta (7) have played their first matches (second round) and both won comfortably in straight sets.

Halep will play the winner of Sevastova (15) and Vinci, while Konta faces the victor of Cibulkova (11) and Cornet.