Richard defeated Dmitrij Tursunov 7-6 6-4 in the first round of Sydney.
Richard was able to stop the negative series against the Russian in their 6th encounter. The first set was dominated by strong serving from both players. There were no breakpoints, and Richard was able to clinch the tie-break 7-4.
In the second set, both players went down in their serving performance, but it was Richard who was able to transfer this into a break in the 5th game. He managed to hold this advantage to close out the match 6-4 and fought off a breakpoint from Tursunov in his last service -game.
His next opponent will be his compatriote Gilles Simon.
