Draper/Sinner, Medvedev/Safiullin advance in Montreal

Jack Draper and Jannik Sinner led a charge of singles stars who held the advantage against doubles specialists Tuesday at the Omnium Banque National présenté par Rogers.

As part of the ATP doubles trial, teams of singles players are pitted against specialist doubles teams in the first round. Draper and Sinner headlined the action by defeating 16th seeds Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 6-0, 6-7(3), 10-8 in front of a packed Court 9.

Despite trailing 4/7 in the Match Tie-break, the British-Italian pair won six of the final seven points to advance. They dropped just four points behind their first serves, according to Infosys ATP Stats, throughout the one-hour, 23-minute match.

Draper and Sinner’s next opponents are a pair of fellow Top 30 singles players. They will face Alexander Bublik and Ben Shelton, who advanced after a freak injury to their opponents Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten.

The Wimbledon champions were serving at 4/2 in the first-set tie-break and were holding their ground at net, cleanly hitting volleys in response to monstrous forehands from Shelton. When the American opened the face of his racquet for a backhand, both the lefty Patten and right-hander Heliovaara prepared for an overhead.

Then, the Finnish-British duo had a nasty collision that left both players visibly shaken. Heliovaara sat on the court for nearly a minute while Patten held his head and grimaced. They later retired after suffering symptoms of concussions while trailing 7-6(6), 2-1.

“Obviously initially it hurt quite a lot, and then I think it slowly became clear that we were a little bit concussed, which is what the doctor and the physio said, picked up a concussion,” Patten said. “Unfortunate, kind of a freak accident. Hopefully we'll be okay. But yeah, just glad that it wasn't worse, and we're good. We'll rest a little bit and look forward to Cincinnati.”

Daniil Medvedev and Roman Safiullin advanced with a 6-4, 6-3 victory against 11th seeds Ivan Dodig and Jean-Julien Rojer. Medvedev and Safiullin earned their first team win across four attempts this season.

Daniil Medvedev lunges for a volley as Roman Safiullin looks on during their Tuesday victory in Montreal. Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour

Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson raced past home hopes Felix Auger-Aliassime and Alexis Galarneau 6-0, 6-1. The 12th seeds next face Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori, who defeated Canadians Vasek Pospisil and Denis Shapovalov 6-4, 6-3.

[NEWSLETTER FORM]