Australians Thanasi Kokkinakis and Sam Groth have been eliminated in the second round of the final ATP tournament before the US Open.
Russia's world No.53 Teymuraz Gabashvili held his nerve to beat Kokkinakis 7-6 (7-5) 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-3) in a tight match at the Winston-Salem Open in North Carolina on Tuesday.
Kokkinakis couldn't back up one of the biggest wins of his career in the opening round when he accounted for world No.39 Alexandr Dolgopolov.
Groth lost in three sets to American Steve Johnson 6-4 6-7 (7-4) 6-1.
Johnson, the world No.49 and tournament 13th seed, sent down 15 aces to Groth's 13 in a battle of the big servers.
Kokkinakis and Groth will now head to New York to prepare for the US Open starting next week while Johnson will meet the winner of the clash between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Denis Istomin in the third round.
Gabashvili will next play either Viktor Troicki or Malek Jaziri.
Meanwhile, top seed Gilles Simon of France was upset by Great Britain's Aljaz Bedene, while South Africa's second seed Kevin Anderson battled through.
Bedene, ranked 58th in the world, battled through tiebreakers in all three sets and match point in the third set against the 11th-ranked Simon to win 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (8-6).
Anderson beat Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 4-6 6-2 6-3.
There were also wins for 2014 finalist Jerzy Janowicz of Poland, Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu, Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic, Argentina's Diego Schwartzman, South Korea's Hyeon Chung and Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci.
Share
