Third-seeded Croatian Marin Cilic defeated Japanese Taro Daniel in the second round of the Singapore Tennis Open 7-5, 6-4, while Kazakh Alexander Bublik, fourth seed, was fought 6-2 and 6-2 by the Turk from the preliminary phase Altug Celikbilek.
The Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka, fifth seed, also advanced from the round at the expense of American Maxime Cressy (6-4 and 6-2) and Australian Alexei Popyrin beat Bulgarian Adrian Andreev, invited to the tournament, 6-1, 5-7 and 6-3.
In three games still pending in the round of 16, The Italian Roberto Marcora beat the Latvian Ernests Gulbis by 7-5 and 6-4, the Australian Matthew Ebden, with an invitation, beat the Indian Yuki Bhambri by 6-3 and 7-6 (3) and South Korean Soonwoo Kwon, eighth seeded, defeated American Thai-Son Kwiatkowski 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
The first seed of the box is the Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, who will debut against Marcora.
The tournament is played without public as prevention against covid, although the organizers will allow access to the stands of 250 spectators in the semifinals and in the final if there are no new infections in the city-state. Although in recent days there have been positives among travelers from abroad, the last local contagion occurred on the 17th.