No. 1 seed Frances Tiafoe smashed 21 aces without a double fault to defeat British qualifier Daniel Evans 6-7 (10), 7-6 (4), 6-3 in two hours and 39 minutes in the second round of the Almaty Open in Kazakhstan on Thursday.
The American charged back from a 4-1 deficit in the first-set tiebreaker and served for set point twice, but Evans pushed him aside and won the set on his fourth attempt. The second set played out in a similar way until Tiafoe scored the final four points of the tiebreaker. From there, Tiafoe finally broke Evans’ serve twice in a 4-0 start to the third set.
Tiafoe’s quarterfinal opponent will be Australian Aleksandar Vukic, who knocked out eighth seed Adrian Mannarino of France 7-6 (4), 6-3.
No. 3 seed Karen Khachanov of Russia snuck past Finland’s Otto Virtanen 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3). Kazakh wild card Beibit Zhukayev also moved on when his second-round opponent, Czech fifth seed Tomas Machac, retired down 3-1 in the first set of their match.
BNP Paribas Nordic Open
No. 1 seed Andrey Rublev of Russia cruised to a 6-4, 6-1 win over Frenchman Alexandre Muller in 64 minutes in the second round in Stockholm.
Rublev is set for a showdown with Stan Wawrinka, the 39-year-old Swiss wild card who battled past Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-4, 3-6, 7-5. It marked Wawrinka’s first back-to-back tour-level wins of the year and pushed him a step closer to his first ATP Tour title since 2017.
No. 3 seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria beat France’s Quentin Halys 7-6 (1), 6-3, and Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic upset fifth seed Nicolas Jarry of Chile 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (2).
European Open
Greek second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas survived a 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-5 win over Brazilian qualifier Thiago Seyboth Wild to move on to the quarterfinals in Antwerp, Belgium.
Tsitsipas won despite hitting six double faults to just five aces while Seyboth Wild fired 14 aces. Seyboth Wild also finished with a 37-35 edge in winners, but Tsitsipas won the 12th game of the third set for the only service break of the set.
Next, Tsitsipas will face Czech fifth seed Jiri Lehecka, who was a 6-4, 6-3 winner over Germany’s Daniel Altmaier. American eighth seed Marcos Giron edged past Arthur Rinderknech of France 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4), while Belgium’s Zizou Bergs enjoyed some home cooking as he took down No. 4 seed Sebastian Baez of Argentina 6-3, 6-4.
–Field Level Media
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