American Steve Johnson made the second round of the bett1 HULKS Championships in Cologne, beating Marin Cilic for the first time in his career 7-6 (7-4) 6-4.
“I would have paid a handsome fee for a couple of aces. I got one. I got one, just got back to 30-30 and played a couple of points where I got lucky. Today things just went my way”, Johnson said.
Yoshihito Nishioka eased past Kyle Edmund 6-4 6-0 and Adrian Mannarino made it to the second round with a 6-2 6-2 win over Australian Alexei Popyrin.
Mannarino will face Miomir Kecmanovic, who came back from a set down to beat Sumit Nagal 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-1.
Gilles Simon beat Jordan Thompson 6-3 7-5 and will meet Denis Shapovalov in there second round. Egor Gerasimov was a comfortable winner over German Daniel Altmeier 6-1 6-0. He will face to Felix Auger Aliassime next.
