Canadian Peter Polansky has advanced to the second round of the Rogers Cup with a 7-6 (3), 6-4 straight-sets victory over Matthew Ebden of Australia.
Polansky of Thornhill, Ont., squeaked out a victory in the first set, coming out on top of a tiebreak 7-3.
He was 2-8 in tiebreaks at Masters tournaments before Monday's win. Polansky said the victory gave him a boost heading into the second.
"It was actually really big. He was serving great and I wasn't expecting to go up by so much early on, I think I was up 4-2 or 5-2," he recalled.
"I thought there would be more pressure on my service points because he was holding so easily. It was big to get that tiebreak and get the momentum and take the lead early on to put pressure on in the second set."
The 30-year-old, who is ranked No. 121 in the world, also took a close second set, which had plenty of back-and-forth action including a seventh game with seven deuces before Polansky held serve.
Polansky finished the match with six aces to Ebden's 12, who is ranked 52nd.
But Polansky won 83 per cent of his first-serve points and 62 per cent off his second serve.
Edben had defeated Polansky is two prior matchups, including in the first round of the Rogers Cup in 2012 and at the Memphis Open last year.
Polansky will face winner of a match between 10th-ranked and four-time Rogers Cup winner Novak Djokovic and Hyeon Chung of South Korea.
Polansky has never advanced past the second round of the Rogers Cup.
In other men's first-round action, Benoit Paire of France downed Jared Donaldson 6-3, 6-4 and Ilya Ivashka of Belarus defeated Yuichi Sugita of Japan 6-2, 6-3.
