Zverev beats Bautista Agut, Medvedev powers on in Monte Carlo

Alexander Zverev continued to rebuild his confidence on clay with a 6-4 6-4 victory over Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut in the Monte Carlo Masters second round on Wednesday and will next face in-form Daniil Medvedev.

German 13th seed Zverev, who suffered a serious ankle injury in the French Open semi-finals last year, won his second match in as many days in his first appearance on the red dirt since the Roland Garros drama.

Zverev broke for 3-2 in the first set and held serve to take it before breaking again in the fifth game of the second set.

Bautista Agut, however, broke the German’s serve to level at 3-3, only for Zverev to make the decisive break in the following game.

Russian Medvedev, winner of four hardcourt titles this year, continued his excellent start to the season with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Italian Lorenzo Sonego on a surface he has not enjoyed much success on in the past.

“I always struggle on clay,” said third seed Medvedev. “I’ve had some good matches where I still struggled. There’s no rhythm on clay, every bounce is a bad bounce and even when it’s good you’re expecting a bad bounce.

“But I managed to play good against a very strong player.”

RUUD MARCHES ON

Casper Ruud, last year’s French Open runner-up, continued his preparations for the claycourt Grand Slam by battling past Botic van de Zandschulp 7-5 7-6(1), avenging a three-set defeat by the Dutchman in Miami last month.

“It’s never easy to start at a new tournament and against a player I’ve lost to before,” said Ruud, who claimed the Estoril title in the lead-up to Monte Carlo.

“I was a bit sloppy and didn’t take my chances. Sometimes it’s a little tricky playing someone you recently lost to, like ‘not again’ but in this case I was a bit happy because I felt there was some unfinished business.”

Ruud next plays Jan-Lennard Struff who stunned 14th seed Alex de Minaur 6-3 6-2. Karen Khachanov also went through with a 7-6(2) 6-2 win over Ilya Ivashka while eighth seed Taylor Fritz overcame Swiss veteran Stan Wawrinka 7-6(10) 6-2.

They were joined by Lorenzo Musetti, who blanked Luca Nardi 6-0 6-0 to set up a clash with world number one Novak Djokovic.

Miami runner-up Jannik Sinner advanced after his doubles partner Diego Schwartzman retired with a shoulder injury trailing 6-0 3-1.

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Additional reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar; Editing by Christian Radnedge and Ed Osmond)