Ben Shelton, the 20-year-old Atlanta native who made a surprise run to the Australian Open quarterfinals in January, got off to a winning start at the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday in Indian Wells, Calif.
Shelton snapped a three-match losing streak by routing Italy’s Fabio Fognini 6-3, 6-1 in first-round action.
Since falling in four sets to Tommy Paul in the quarterfinals at Melbourne, Australia, Shelton had dropped his opening matches at Delray Beach, Fla., and Acapulco, Mexico, prior to winning in his first-ever appearance at Indian Wells.
Shelton needed just 71 minutes to dispatch Fognini, winning 65 percent of his first-serve points and 65 percent of his second-return points. Fognini took advantage of just one of his five break-point opportunities.
Shelton advances to a second-round matchup against countryman Taylor Fritz, who is seeded fourth. The tournament’s top 32 seeds — including No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, No. 2 Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece and No. 3 Casper Ruud of Norway — received first-round byes.
In other first-round action, three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland defeated Australian qualifier Aleksandar Vukic 6-4, 1-6, 6-1. Wawrinka won 85 percent of his first-serve points and had a 10-5 edge in aces.
Two-time major champ Andy Murray of Great Britain rallied past Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-4. Murray converted four of 20 break points, while Etcheverry took advantage of just one of his five break chances.
Other opening-round winners included Australian qualifiers Thanasi Kokkinakis and Rinky Hijikata, German qualifier Jan-Lennard Struff, Taiwan’s Tung-lin Wu, the United States’ Mackenzie McDonald and Jack Sock, France’s Adrian Mannarino and Richard Gasquet, Argentina’s Guido Pella, Great Britain’s Jack Draper, Slovakia’s Alex Molcan, Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics, Spain’s Pedro Martinez and Australia’s Alexei Popyrin.
–Field Level Media
