China’s Yibing Wu lost the first set after having a set point but rallied for a 6-7 (6), 6-0, 7-6 (3) win over Spain’s Jaume Munar in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open on Wednesday in Indian Wells, Calif.
Wu led 6-5 in the opening-set tiebreaker before Munar claimed the next three points.
Wu then cruised through the second set, and the third set featured only one exchange of service breaks midway through. In the decisive tiebreaker, Wu moved in front 5-2 before closing out the win, his sixth straight on tour. He won his first career ATP Tour championship last month in Dallas.
The tournament’s top 32 seeds, including No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, No. 2 Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, No. 3 Casper Ruud of Norway and No. 4 Taylor Fritz of the United States, received first-round byes.
Marcos Giron prevailed in an all-U.S. matchup, beating wild-card entrant Aleksandar Kovacevic 6-3, 7-5. Brandon Nakashima also defeated a U.S. countryman, topping John Isner 7-6 (7), 6-3 without ever dropping his serve.
Japanese qualifier Taro Daniel downed Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena 6-1, 7-5, and Chilean qualifier Cristian Garin ousted Colombia’s Daniel Elahi Galan 6-4, 6-2.
Other opening-round winners included Argentina’s Pedro Cachin and Diego Schwartzman, Australia’s Jason Kubler and Jordan Thompson, France’s Ugo Humbert, Belarus’ Ilya Ivashka, the Czech Republic’s Jiri Lehecka, Germany’s Oscar Otte and Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori.
–Field Level Media
