Australian John Millman shook off a tough start to the year to topple in-form American Maxime Cressy in a hard-fought three-setter lasting almost three hours at the Delray Beach Open.
The 6-7(2-7) 7-6(7-2) 7-6(7-3) triumph delivered Millman’s first win over a top-100 opponent since beating Aslan Karatsev in October.
In a match of wildly contrasting styles, Millman did enough from the back of the court to outlast the serve-volleyer, who made the fourth round at the Australian Open and reached a final in a lead-up event in Melbourne.
The 32-year-old Millman, who lost four of his previous five matches this year, revealed afterwards he lost a practice set 6-0 to Cressy in the lead-up and was concerned when the draw came out.
“Against the guys who have massive serves – and Maxime’s serve is massive – you have to look after your own service games,” Millman said.
“He’s super aggressive on his returns, so you have to make a lot of first serves, look after your service games and hopefully take advantage of those, maybe, one or two opportunities you create on return games.
“He’s got such a reach and he’s actually so athletic. He serve-volleys the whole time, so I’m trying to get that first one down at the toes and maybe get a look at the second one.
“But all credit to Maxime because I thought I returned not too bad and he picked out a couple of really tough volleys and made me come up with the goods … I got a little bit fortunate to get one away to get that mini-break in that last set.”
Millman looked in trouble when he sank into a 0-30 hole while trying to force a tie-break in the deciding set, but he thrived after surviving that challenge.
Cressy will rue dumping a high backhand volley into the net that would have snatched the first mini-break in the final-set tie-break.
Millman ripped a forehand crosscourt pass winner on the next point to go 3-1 up, then a few points later he hammered a backhand through Cressy to bring up triple match point. He needed just one.
The world No.91 will face the winner of the all-American battle between Tennys Sandgren and Marcos Gxjmtzywiron in the second round.
“It’s a completely different game there. It’s going to be physical and that’s the type of tennis, to be honest with you, that I’m a little bit more comfortable with,” Millman said.
“It gives me another opportunity to get used to the conditions and hopefully come Wednesday, I’ll finetune my game and bring that physical, groundstroke game I like to bring.”
Elsewhere, qualifier Chris O’Connell’s first tournament since reaching the last 32 at the Australian Open ended in a 6-7(4-7) 7-6(8-6) 6-4 defeat to Slovakian left-hander Alex Molcan at the Qatar Open in Doha.
An error-riddled ninth game on serve in the third set proved O’Connell’s undoing as 73rd-ranked Molcan prevailed.
At the Dubai Tennis Championships, Ajla Tomljanovic lost 6-1 7-5 to Romanian Gabriela Ruse.
