Cipolla ousts Sock at Farmers Classic
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Flavio Cipolla of Italy defeated Jack Sock of the United States 6-3, 6-1 in the first round at the Farmers Classic on Monday night.
A quarterfinalist last week in Atlanta, where he lost to 11th-ranked John Isner in two close sets, Sock struggled with errors and Cipolla's experience at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA.
No. 8 seed Brian Baker also made a quick exit from the tournament, losing to fellow American Rajeev Ram, 7-6 (3), 7-5, in a late match. It was the second straight first-round loss for Baker since reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon.
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Sock had two aces in his opening service game and was even with Cipolla at 3-3 in the first set, then lost serve four times in five games as Cipolla controlled the 68-minute match.
"I opened up serving very well," Sock said. "I was getting free points on my serve, which is what I try to do. Then I started missing a lot of first serves and he started getting a lot of game points.
"I thought he was hitting the ball pretty well. His slice stays really low and the night takes a little bounce out of the court. I was hoping to kind of use my height and kick serves and some high, heavy forehands to get up on him, he's a short guy (5-foot-8), but he handled it well. I wasn't expecting him to be able to take every slice and keep it off the net on my forehand. He just played well tonight."
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Sock struggled with errors as well. One of those, a double fault, gave Cipolla a break point to go up 5-1 in the second set, and a forehand that sailed just long on match point gave the 93rd-ranked Italian the win.
Earlier in the day, Paul Capdeville of Chile almost wasted a five-point lead in a second set tiebreaker before wrapping up a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win over Igor Kunitsyn of Russia.