Toronto Masters: Zverev starts strong with straight-sets win over Walton

Alexander Zverev had a brief moment of confusion on Tuesday night during his opening match at the Toronto Masters 1000. Facing Adam Walton — who had upset Benjamin Bonzi in the first round — the world No 3 secured a 7-6(6), 6-4 victory to advance to the third round.

The first set was a tightly contested battle that went to a tiebreak. At 7-6, Zverev thought he had closed it out with an ace. He raised his arms, shouted in celebration… only to realize the serve had been called out — with a slight delay. A momentary pause, but no harm done: he wrapped up the set a couple of points later, 8-6 in the breaker.

In the second set, Zverev took control with a break at 3-2. Walton, ranked No 110 in the world, kept fighting and even broke back when Zverev served for the match at 5-3. But the German closed it out in the very next game — helped by a double fault from Walton on match point.

Zverev will face Matteo Arnaldi next for a place in the last 16.

Toronto Masters 1000, other second-round results (Aviva Centre, hard, USD 9.193.540, most recent results first):

• Roberto Carballes Baena vs. Taylor Fritz
• Fabian Marozsan vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime
• Francisco Comesana vs. Alex De Minaur

• Arthur Fils vs. Pablo Carreno Busta
• Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Christopher O’Connell
• Mackenzie McDonald vs. Jiri Lehecka
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina vs. Corentin Moutet
• Gabriel Diallo vs. Matteo Gigante
• Tristan Boyer vs. Jakub Mensik
• Brandon Nakashima vs. Ethan Quinn
• Frances Tiafoe vs. Yosuke Watanuki
• Yunchaokete Bu vs. Lorenzo Sonego
• Adrian Mannarino vs. Ben Shelton
• Flavio Cobolli vs. Alexis Galarneau
• Aleksandar Vukic vs. Cameron Norrie
• Andrey Rublev vs. Hugo Gaston
• Tristan Schoolkate vs. Matteo Arnaldi: wednesday
• Reilly Opelka beat Tomas Machac (16): 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 6-3
• Learner Tien beat Denis Shapovalov (22): 7-6 (4), 7-5
• Daniil Medvedev (10) beat Dalibor Svrcina (LL): 7-6 (3), 6-4
• Nuno Borges (30) beat Facundo Bagnis (Q): 5-7, 7-6 (3), 6-2
• Casper Ruud (8) beat Roman Safiullin: 6-3, 6-3
• Francisco Cerundolo (14) beat Jaume Munar: 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-4
• Tomas Martin Etcheverry beat Tallon Griekspoor (24): 6-4, 7-6 (4)
• Alexei Popyrin (18) beat Nicolas Arseneault (WC): 7-6 (7), 6-3
• Lorenzo Musetti (3) beat James Duckworth (Q): 7-5, 6-1
• Karen Khachanov (11) beat Juan Pablo Ficovich (Q): 6-4, 6-2
• Alex Michelsen (26) beat Tomas Barrios Vera (Q): 7-6 (7), 6-3
• Holger Rune (5) beat Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard: 7-6 (7), 6-3
• Alexandre Muller (29) beat Miomir Kecmanovic: 2-6, 6-3, 7-5
• Emilio Nava (Q) beat Terence Atmane (LL): 6-2, 7-5