Citi Open: Fritz reaches last 16, beating Popyrin in straight sets

American Taylor Fritz, the No 3 seed, won against Australian Alexei Popyrin 6-4, 6-3 to reach the last 16 of the Citi Open at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center in Washington on Wednesday.

“I felt pretty good”, Fritz said after the match. “I played a pretty solid match. You know, there are some things that I could do better, but after being in a boot for a couple of weeks, not playing too much, then kind of starting up again last week, and also coming in the tournament not really sure how my foot was going to feel, like I have to be really happy with how it felt and how I played. Considering the preparation leading in, I felt it was a really solid match.”

Fritz, ranked No 13, will play No 16 seed Daniel Evans next.

Popyrin, ranked No 83, benefited from the abandonment of qualifier Tung-lin Wu (3-3) in the previous round of the Citi Open, Washington D.C.

Washington ATP 500, other second-round matches (Rock Creek Park Tennis Center, hard, USD 2.108.110, most recent results first):

• Tommy Paul vs. Nick Kyrgios
• Christopher Eubanks vs. Frances Tiafoe
• Denis Kudla vs. Reilly Opelka
• Jack Sock vs. Maxime Cressy
• Grigor Dimitrov vs. Adrian Mannarino
• J.J. Wolf vs. Denis Shapovalov: wednesday
• Sebastian Korda beat Sebastian Baez (12): 6-1, 6-4
• Yoshihito Nishioka beat Alex De Minaur (11): 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-2
• Emil Ruusuvuori beat Hubert Hurkacz (2): 6-4, 7-6 (3)
• Mikael Ymer beat Aslan Karatsev (15): 6-4, 3-6, 6-4
• Holger Rune (9) beat Benoit Paire: 6-3, 6-2
• Karen Khachanov (7) beat Dominik Koepfer (Q): 6-7 (3), 7-5, 6-4
• Botic van de Zandschulp (8) beat Borna Gojo (Q): 7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-4
• Andrey Rublev (1) beat Jack Draper: 6-4, 6-2
• Daniel Evans beat Kyle Edmund: 6-1, 6-2