Second seed Alex de Minaur of Australia bounced back from a tough first set and defeated Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the first round of the Erste Bank Open on Tuesday in Vienna, Austria.
Struff won 10 of his 11 first-serve points in the opening set, but de Minaur took over from there. He finished the match 4-for-6 in both saving break points and converting chances to break Struff’s serve.
Luciano Darderi of Italy defeated Dominic Thiem 7-6 (6), 6-2 in the final match of the retiring Austrian star’s career. The former World No. 3 never regained his form after a major right wrist injury in 2021. After the match, Thiem received a thunderous ovation and his racket was placed in a glass case.
Also advancing in straight sets were American No. 5 seed Frances Tiafoe, Italian No. 6 seed Lorenzo Musetti, British No. 7 seed Jack Draper, American Marcos Giron, Frenchman Gael Monfils and Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic.
Swiss Indoors Basel
No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece needed 2 hours, 32 minutes to battle past Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4) in the first round in Switzerland.
Tsitsipas trailed the third-set tiebreaker 4-2 before pulling off the final five points in a row to come from behind. Cerundolo out-aced Tsitsipas 9-6, but Tsitsipas saved 6 of 8 break points. The Greek’s next opponent will be Dutch qualifier Botic van de Zandschulp, who led his match 3-6, 6-4, 4-0 when Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik retired due to injury.
No. 4 seed Holger Rune of Denmark defeated Nicolas Jarry of Chile 6-4, 7-6 (3), while No. 6 seed Ben Shelton of the U.S. beat Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-3, 6-4. Also advancing in straight sets were Canadian Denis Shapovalov, Switzerland’s Dominic Stricker and Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo.
–Field Level Media
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