Video: Bautista Agut’s Perfect ‘Tweener

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Video: Bautista Agut’s Perfect ‘Tweener

Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut scored high marks with this perfectly placed running ‘tweener during his dominant victory over Benjamin Becker in Monte-Carlo. The fleet-footed Bautista Agut basically puts on a clinic in how to blanket a tennis court without ever seeming tired. Not only does he plop the 'tweener deep in Becker's side of the court to stay at neutral in the rally, Bautista Agut continues hammering away patiently in its aftermath until the point is won.

The Spaniard won 17 of 19 points against Becker’s second serve, and broke serve on six of nine occasions to improve his lifetime record to 3-2 in the principality.

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But this perfectly placed between-the-legs reply to a Becker lob has to go down as the sublime shot of the day.

Bautista Agut will face another German, Phillip Kohlschreiber, in the third round. Kohlschreiber eased past Mikhail Kukushkin, 6-4, 6-4, to improve his all-time record at Monte-Carlo to 15-8. He’s a two-time quarterfinalist at the event.

In other first-round action on Monday, Alexandr Dolgopolov got past Borna Coric, 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, while Fabio Fognini trampled Jerzy Janowicz, 6-3, 6-1.

Ernests Gulbis was the highest seed to fall. The Latvian committed a bevy of forehand errors and went down easily to Andreas Haider-Maurer, 6-1, 6-0, to fall to 1-8 in 2015.

John Isner advanced past fellow American Steve Johnson, while Benoit Paire moved past Denis Kudla in a battle of qualifiers. David Goffin and Sergiy Stakhovsky were also winners on Monday.

Top-seeded Novak Djokovic will headline Tuesday’s action in Monte-Carlo. David Ferrer, Grigor Dimitrov, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Grigor Dimitrov will also be in action.

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