HOUSTON, November 13, 2019
No.3 seed and career ace leader Ivo Karlovic advanced to the third round of the Oracle Challenger Series Houston by firing 19 more on a chilly Tuesday afternoon at the George R. Brown Tennis Center to blast past Liam Caruana of Italy 7-5, 6-4. The 40-year-old Croat, who lifted his last trophy by winning the ATP Challenger in Calgary October last year, prevailed after one hour and 13 minutes and will next take on Sekou Bangoura from the United States.
Following the match of Karlovic, US-American No.8 seed Mitchell Krueger wasted no time in defeating Felipe Meligeni Rodrigues Alves of Brazil 6-2, 6-2 in under an hour.
“I served and returned really well and played a complete match,” said Krueger, as quoted on the Oracle Challenger Series website. “I didn’t miss much. I really wanted to keep the match tight because as the sun fell, it kept getting colder. So I was very happy to have a clean and quick win.”
In the final match of the evening, @mitch_krueger dominates from start to finish, knocking out Felipe Meligeni Rodrigues Alves 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the 2R 🇺🇸#RoadtoIndianWells pic.twitter.com/SofJHz9WSf
— Oracle Challenger Series (@OracleChallngrs) November 13, 2019
Krueger will next face either No. 12 seed Pedja Krstin of Serbia or US-American Nick Chappell.
Also notching second-round wins were No.15 seed Michael Redlicki from the United States and Gonzalo Escobar of Ecuador, who knocked off No. 7 seed Darian King of Barbados 7-6(3), 7-5 in one hour and 16 minutes.
Men’s Singles – Second Round
[3] Ivo Karlovic (CRO) d Liam Caruana (ITA) 75 64
Gonzalo Escobar (ECU) d [7] Darian King (BAR) 76(3) 75
[8] Mitchell Krueger (USA) d Felipe Meligeni Rodrigues Alves (BRA) 62 62
[15] Michael Redlicki (USA) d Govind Nanda (USA) 63 63
[16] Sekou Bangoura (USA) d Peter Heller (GER) 06 64 62
Men’s Singles – First Round
Nick Chappell (USA) d Sebastian Fanselow (GER) 61 36 76(5)
[WC] Brandon Holt (USA) d Colin Sinclair (NMI) 61 75
Gonzalo Villanueva (ARG) d Rafael Matos (BRA) 76(3) 64
Diego Hidalgo (ECU) d Alexander Sarkissian (USA) 61 61
Daniel Nguyen (USA) d [WC] Sumit Sarkar (USA) 61 60
[Q] Alexis Galarneau (CAN) d Gerardo Lopez Villasenor (MEX) 63 63
Collin Altamirano (USA) d Gage Brymer (USA) 62 76(5)
Filip Jianu (ROU) d [Q] Alafia Ayeni (USA) 64 62
Men’s Doubles – First Round
[1] Jonathan Erlich (ISR) / Santiego Gonzalez (MEX) d [WC] Jamie Bendeck (USA) / Brandon Holt (USA) 61 62
[WC] Sekou Bangoura (USA) / Govind Nanda (USA) d [WC] Michael Redlicki (USA) / Alexander Ritschard (USA) 62 62
