Lloyd Harris earned the biggest win of his career yesterday, when he stunned top seed Dominic Thiem 6-3, 6-4 at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The South African served with confidence to eliminate the US Open champion after 72 minutes. 
This is Harris’ first win against a Top 5 player. The 24-year-old claimed his first Top 20 win at last week’s Qatar ExxonMobil Open against Stan Wawrinka.
Harris was happy to engage in backhand-to-backhand rallies early in the first set. 
The South African proved the more consistent player on the stroke to earn the first break points of the match at 2-1 and he converted his second chance with a cross-court backhand winner.
Throughout the match, Harris held serve without being forced to deuce. The World No. 81 earned the only break of the second set at 3-3, when he rushed Thiem with deep backhand returns and capitalised on two double faults. 
Harris closed the match with a powerful first serve into Thiem’s backhand.
Harris will meet 14th seed Filip Krajinovic for a quarter-final spot. The Serbian saved all four break points he faced to defeat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 7-5, 6-4 in 80 minutes.
Kei Nishikori extended his unbeaten ATP Head2Head record against David Goffin to 4-0 with a 6-3, 7-6(3) win. 
The Japanese, who reached the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament quarter-finals earlier this month, will face Aljaz Bedene in the third round. 
Bedene landed 10 aces and won 92 per cent of his first-serve points to beat Lorenzo Giustino 6-4, 6-3.
Karen Khachanov also advanced to the third round. The Russian outlasted Singapore champion Alexei Popyrin 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4) in two hours and 16 minutes. 
Khachanov will meet Jeremy Chardy for a place in the quarter-finals.
Ealrier in the day, Andrey Rublev has added his voice to criticism of the current ATP ranking system with the Russian world No.8 suggesting after winning his opening match that it does not work in his favour.
Alexander Zverev, the German world No. 7, recently described the revised system as “absurd” because he is ranked lower than Roger Federer even though the Swiss missed an entire year due to knee surgery.
The system was introduced to protect players who are unable to travel and compete because of the coronavirus pandemic.
While players can add points to their tally, they do not drop the points accumulated from the previous season. “If we would have the normal system, I would be like No. 4 in the world I think. So what do you think is better for me, to be No. 8 or No. 4?” said Rublev when asked if he agreed with Zverev’s statements. 
“With the system that we’re having now, for me, it’s much tougher to be No. 4, so here is the answer.”
Rublev extended his winning streak at 500-level tournaments to 21 matches after he beat Finnish qualifier Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4, 6-4 in the second round in Dubai.  The Russian, who has won his last four events at this level dating back to Hamburg last September, will next tackle American 15th seed Taylor Fritz or freshly-crowned Doha champion Nikoloz Basilashvili in the last-16 stage. 
The second-seeded Rublev faced no break points against the 21-year-old Ruusuvuori and unleashed 26 winners, including six aces. Canadian world No. 12 Denis Shapovalov said he plans to compete in fewer tournaments this season if the tennis tour continues to operate under strict coronavirus bubble conditions for players.
Shapovalov, who enjoyed a winning debut in Dubai thanks to a 6-1, 6-3 second-round success over German big-server Jan-Lennard Struff, says being confined to a hotel room at every tournament due to Covid-19 restrictions can take a mental toll on players.
“I definitely don’t want to play too much this year if it’s going to be a bubble life because it is extremely difficult mentally to be locked up like this,” the 21-year-old said.
“Of course it’s amazing to play, but as the weeks go on, you kind of lose that passion for tennis and a lot of players are struggling with that. So we’re trying to take the approach of minimising that as much as possible and just enjoying every match that I do go out and play this year.”