Canadian top seed Milos Raonic has suffered a surprise second-round defeat to Ivan Dodig at Eastbourne.
World number 54 Dodig won comfortably in straight sets 6-2 7-6 (9-7) after a sloppy performance from the Canadian.
Raonic lost his first two service games allowing Dodig into a 5-2 advantage. Raonic had an opportunity to break back as Dodig served for the set but failed to convert.
The second set went with serve and Dodig held his nerve to prevail in the tie-break to wrap up the victory in 83 minutes.
“I couldn’t have started in a worse way,” said Raonic, “I think I missed four backhands to start off the match.
“I had my chance in the tie-break. But I don’t think I should let situations where I get two double faults from my opponent pass by and not win a tie-break. I can’t play much worse, so it’s only going to get better.”
Fourth seed Juan Monaco also crashed out as he was defeated 6-4 6-4 by Feliciano Lopez of Spain but eight seed Fabio Fognini escaped against Martin Klizan 6-7(6) 6-2 6-2, while unpredicatable but talented Australian Bernard Tomic beat Julien Benneteau 6-2 5-7 7-6(4).
In ‘s-Hertogenbosch, fifth seed Jeremy Chardy moved into the quarter-finals with a 7-5 6-4 victory over Romania’s Marius Copil. The Frenchman is one of only two seeds – the other being second seed Stanislas Wawrinka – still left in the competition.
ATP Eastbourne second round results
Ivan Dodig (Croatia) beat 1-Milos Raonic (Canada) 6-2 7-6(7)
Fernando Verdasco (Spain) beat Albert Ramos (Spain) 6-4 6-0
ATP ‘s-Hertogenbosch second round results
Roberto Bautista (Spain) beat Carlos Berlocq (Argentina) 6-2 6-3
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (Spain) beat Daniel Brands (Germany) 7-6(7) 6-2
Jan Hernych (CzechRepublic) beat Michael Llodra (France) 6-7(5) 6-4 7-5
Evgeny Donskoy (Russia) beat Robin Haase (Netherlands) 6-4 7-5
Nicolas Mahut (France) beat Andrey Kuznetsov (Russia) 6-2 6-4
