Milos Raonic reached the Swiss Indoors Basel second round to remain in contention for a spot at next month’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals .
Fourth seed Raonic, who is making his debut at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament, hit 12 aces to defeat Steve Johnson 7-6(4), 6-4.
The Canadian is currently in tenth position in the Emirates ATP Race To London.
Meanwhile, Mikhail Kukushkin recorded just the second Top 10 win of his career, knocking out third seed Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 6-7(1), 6-3 for a second-round meeting against Benjamin Becker.
Wawrinka was making his 11th appearance in Basel, having reached the semi-finals in 2006 and 2011.
Eighth seed Ivo Karlovic added 23 aces to his 2014 tally in a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over Lukas Rosol.
Ivan Dodig denied Marco Chiudinelli his first tour-level match win of the year with a 6-4, 6-7(7), 6-4 win in two hours and 52 minutes.
And, Canadian Vasek Pospisil prevailed against Finland’s Jarkko Niemimen 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-4 in the final match. He now awaits the winner between Grigor Dimitrov and Alexander Zverev.
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