Walton's reward comes at the new look 'Cincy'

(The First Serve)

In a game marked by personal milestones and breakthroughs, Aussie Adam Walton has achieved his finest tennis moment thus far in Cincinnati.

On another warm day in the mid-west on the new Champions Court, he wore down former world No.1 and 13th seed Daniil Medvedev, coming from a set down where he didn't win a point in the tie break to prevail 6-7(0), 6-4, 6-1 in two hours and 20 minutes.

It is a big box to tick in his journey having previously been 0-11 win-loss and 0-24 sets vs the top 50.

The 26-year-old from Brisbane thrives in the heat and looked like he had the staying power to play for another two plus hours. His Masters 1000 record moves to 6-3 and his next challenge will be world No.26 Czech Jiri Lehecka.

A win would equal his best showing at 1000 level having made the round of 16 in Miami back in March.

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The other Australian winner on Sunday was Alexei Popyrin who managed to overcome Spanish qualifier Martin Landaluce 7-6(3), 6-3; the first set alone going 75 minutes.

Popyrin will next face Andrey Rublev who he has a 2-1 head to head with.

Headlining the Australian defeats was No.1 Aussie male Alex de Minaur, who kicked off his campaign at the 11am start time having won eight of his last nine matches against a player he had never lost to in the pros, American Reilly Opelka.

The five previous wins had been far from straight forward for ‘Demon’, but he had managed to win 10 of the 12 sets played coming in against one of the games biggest servers.

Today, Opelka came out with a clear intent to win the ground battle. It was high risk, high reward tennis, trying to avoid getting into grinding rallies as he unleashed with fury of both wings (36 winners to 6) and whilst not serving at his absolute best, was able to find great end range when the ball was in play to prevail 7-6(6), 6-4.

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Our three Aussie women all bowed out - Daria Kasatkina (15) 3-6, 6-1, 4-6 to 59th ranked Italian Lucia Bronzetti, Kimberly Birrell to fourth seed Jess Pegula 4-6, 3-6 and Ajla Tomljanovic to 16th seed Clara Tauson 3-6, 7-6(5), 4-6.

Maya Joint will be our sole Aussie in singles on Monday as she takes on 21st seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.

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