Shelton cruises into second round in Dallas

American Ben Shelton, the No 4 seed, moved into the second round of the Dallas Open by winning against Australian Aleksandar Vukic 6-3, 6-3 at the Ford Center at The Star on Wednesday night.

Shelton was in control throughout. He only made 59 percent of his first serves, but did dominate those points, winning 26 of 29. He never faced a break point, and converted three of his four break opportunities against the Aussie.

“I thought I did a lot of things well,” Shelton said. “I wanted to have a little bit higher first-serve percentage, that’s one thing that I want to do better. Breaking three times against a server like that is something I don’t take lightly, and it kind of shows where I’m at and how I’m feeling right now.”

The American won nine of 15 second-serve return points and was particularly pleased that he was able to make inroads against Vukic’s serve with regularity.

“A future goal for me is to be one of the best returners in the world,” Shelton said. “It’s something I work on constantly and something I spend a lot of time on. For me the work continues. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’ll work every single day to try to get there.”

Shelton, ranked No 13, will face the winner of the match between Spaniard Jaume Munar and Chinese Yunchaokete Bu next.

Dallas ATP 500, other first-round results (Ford Center at The Star, hard, USD 2.760.000, most recent results first):

• Miomir Kecmanovic vs. Denis Shapovalov
• Taylor Fritz vs. Arthur Rinderknech
• Reilly Opelka vs. Alexander Shevchenko
• Kei Nishikori vs. Tomas Machac
• Roberto Carballes Baena vs. Michael Mmoh
• Yoshihito Nishioka vs. Brandon Nakashima
• Jaume Munar vs. Yunchaokete Bu
• Marcos Giron vs. Casper Ruud
• Cameron Norrie beat Alex Michelsen (7): 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1
• Tommy Paul (3) beat Jenson Brooksby (WC): 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-4
• Ethan Quinn (Q) beat Trevor Svajda (WC): 6-4, 6-2
• Frances Tiafoe (5) beat Taro Daniel: 6-1, 3-6, 6-4
• Rinky Hijikata beat Adrian Mannarino: 7-5, 6-3
• Matteo Arnaldi (8) beat Christopher Eubanks (Q): 6-3, 6-4
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina beat Brandon Holt (Q): 6-1, 7-5

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