Fifth-seeded Frenchman Alexandre Muller shook off a loss of serve while trying to win the match and a match point against in the deciding set’s 12th game and rallied to edge Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (6) in the opening round of the Hellenic Championships in Athens.
Muller, the lone seeded player in action, broke Struff at love in the third set’s third game, but the German returned the favor in the set’s 10th game. After dropping a match point opportunity, Struff bolted out to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreaker, but Muller captured the next five points and the match on his second match point chance.
Wild card and three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland rallied for a 2-6, 7-6 (5), 7-5 victory over the Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp. Wawrinka will face second-seeded Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the second round. Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic, Czechian Vit Kopriva and Eliot Spizzirri also earned first-round victories on the hard courts in the ATP 250 event.
Moselle Open
Seventh-seeded Cameron Norrie of Great Britain shook off a poor second-set tie-breaker and knocked off France’s Valentin Royer 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-3 in Metz, France.
Norrie, the only seeded player to compete on Monday, never lost serve in the match, but Royer was resilient, saving 4 of 6 break points. But he could not recover after losing serve in the second game of the deciding set. Both players struck 10 aces and only one double fault.
On the comeback trail from injury, former World No. 6 Italian Matteo Berrettini ousted France’s Quentin Halys 6-2, 6-4. Other winners in the first round were Italian Lorenzo Sonego, Frenchman Clement Tabur, Ukrainian Vitaliy Sachko and American Learner Tien. The 19-year old Tien, ranked No. 38 in the world, upended France’s Ugo Blanchet 6-3, 6-3 in 66 minutes.
–Field Level Media
Comments