Bautista Agut defeats Johnson, reaches Paris Masters 2nd round

Paris : Spanish tennis player Roberto Bautista Agut on Monday topped Steve Johnson of the United States 6-4, 7-6 (7-2) to book a place in the second round of the Paris Masters, the ninth and final Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour Masters 1000 tournament of the season.

World No. 25 Bautista Agut needed one hour and 23 minutes to get past Johnson, world No. 36, who seemed to have hurt his right knee at the end of the third game of the second set but managed to force a tiebreaker thanks to his serve.

Johnson, however, gave away a mini-break to Bautista Agut in the tiebreaker by committing a double fault, making the score 3-1, reports Efe news.

The US player only managed to win one of the next five points, killing his chances of advancing to the second round of the tournament for a second year in a row.

Making his sixth tournament appearance, Bautista Agut is hoping to get past the round of 16, his best result ever in the tournament which he achieved in 2017 and 2014.

But first, the Spanish player will take on ninth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in the round of 32, with the Spaniard trailing 2-1 in their head-to-head record.