Dan Evans was injured during his singles match in Vienna early this morning, so he and Ben Shelton had to withdraw from their first round doubles match against Cameron Norrie and Tommy Paul. They were replaced by Gonzalo Escobar and Aleksandr Nedovyesov, the Lucky Losers from the qualifying competition. Paul served first, and held comfortably despite a beautiful backhand return from Nedovyesov, who served next and held serve just as easily. Norrie went even better, needing just four serves and winning the first point with a beautiful forehand winner down the singles sideline. The left-handed Escobar was last to serve, but he didn’t have any trouble holding, either.
The first chance for a break came when Nedovyesov hit a fabulous forehand return down the singles sideline off Paul to get to deuce, but a great short rally on the deciding point ended when Escobar was forced to hit a forehand into the net. Nedovyesov had another comfortable hold, although the best shot in the game was a beautiful cross-court backhand return from Paul, and Norrie continued the sequence of holds. That run came to an end in the next game, when two poor volleys at the net by Nedovyesov were followed by the shot of the match, a fabulous inside-out forehand lob from Paul into the corner to end a great rally and complete the first break of serve. Paul started the next game with a second serve ace out wide to Escobar, and then hit a beautiful backhand volley into the tramlines to give himself four set points. Escobar was forced into a backhand error, and the set was over after 26 minutes.
Nedovyesov looked to be cruising in the opening game of the second set when Escobar’s beautiful inside-out forehand volley made the score 40-15, but his partner then sent a backhand volley into the net before Norrie’s nice forehand volley took them to deuce. Norrie got the deciding point back in play, but Nedovyesov pushed his forehand volley a bit too hard to lose the game. Paul held to love before Nedovyesov won the best rally of the match to start Escobar’s service game, finishing with a forehand volley down the right side of the court. The latter two then muffed backhand volleys before Nedovyesov ended another good rally by hitting an overhead volley past the baseline, and did the same with a forehand volley at the net.
Norrie aced Escobar to start the next game before winning the second point with a beautiful cross-court forehand winner into the tramlines, and only needed two more serves to consolidate the double break. Once again Nedovyesov was coasting towards the game when he was up 40-15, the sole lost point being due to a fabulous forehand return from Norrie, but a winning volley from Paul and a double fault saw him again taken to deuce, where his final volley was pushed wide on the deciding point. That left Paul to serve for the match, and he finished with a second serve ace out wide to Nedovyesov as he held to love. The final score was 6-3, 6-0, Norrie and Paul having won the last nine games. The match took just 47 minutes.