American Donald Young upset French eighth seed Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 7-6 (11/9) Monday in the opening round of the ATP Memphis Open.
In a 90-minute showdown of left-handers who both went out in the second round at the Australian Open last month, 67th-ranked Young booked a second-round match against a qualifier by downing the 40th-ranked Frenchman.
Young won the only break point of the first set, then took a 3-2 lead as the rivals exchanged five breaks of serve to begin the second set.
Mannarino broke back to 4-4 and they fought out a tense tie-breaker that the American finally claimed, having fired seven of his nine aces in the second set.
Mannarino, 26, reached a career-high ranking of 36th last month after a run to his first ATP final at Auckland, where he lost to Czech Jiri Vesely.
Young, 25, lost to Vesely in the Auckland quarter-finals.
Croatian Ivan Dodig, ranked 86th, advanced with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over 72nd-ranked Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili.
Dodig fired five aces and never faced a break point in the 58-minute triumph, which set him up with a clash with US third seed John Isner, who had a first-round bye.
Top seed Kei Nishikori of Japan, South African second seed Kevin Anderson and Ukrainian fourth seed Alexandr Dolgopolov also received first-round byes.
Source: AFP