By Chris Oddo | Wednesday June 8, 2016
18-year-old Stefan Kozlov has notched his first two tour-level wins this week in 's-Hertogenbosch.
Photo Source: TennisTV
Stefan Kozlov backed up his first ATP-level win with an even bigger triumph on Wednesday at the Ricoh Open.
More: Sharapova Receives Two-Year Ban from ITF | Sharapova Will Appeal ITF Ban
The American, currently a World No.196, upset his compatriot Steve Johnson, ranked 157 spots above him, 6-3, 6-4.
“I'm a little bit in shock right now. Obviously I haven't played too much at this level so I’m really excited and really happy,” Kozlov said after defeating the fourth seed. “I was actually really calm throughout the whole match. I was a little unlucky serving out the match and that was one of the toughest games I've ever played in my life. So I'm really relieved and very excited.”
Kozlov saved all three break points he faced in the first set and broke Johnson twice. In the second set he failed to protect break leads twice, but he finished the match by breaking Johnson’s serve, converting his second match point as Johnson failed to hit his mark.
Kozlov saved seven of nine break points on the day and broke Johnson on 5 of 11 break chances.
Kozlov, who defeated Yoshihito Nishioka in the first round for his first ATP-level win, moves on to face fellow American Sam Querrey in the quarterfinals.
The Macedonia native and Florida resident reached two junior Grand Slam finals in 2014, losing to Alexander Zverev at the Australian Open and Noah Rubin at Wimbledon. He was a junior World No. 2 and played his first ATP-level match at the age of 15 at Newport. He had gone 0-4 at the Tour-level until this week.
Also moving through on Wednesday at ‘s-Hertogenbosch was Nicolas Mahut. The defending champion took out France’s Paul-Henri Mathieu, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.
Second-seeded Bernard Tomic eased past Great Britain’s Aljaz Bedene, 6-4, 6-3, while fifth-seeded Querrey knocked off Japan’s Tatsuma Ito, 6-3, 6-4.