Portugal’s Jaime Faria held off Stan Wawrinka 6-7 (8), 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday in the first round of the EFG Swiss Open Gstaad, marking the 41-year-old’s final match on the clay in his homeland.
Wawrinka has said he will retire after this season. The three-time Grand Slam champion was presented with a gift of new skis by tournament organizers after his nearly two-hour, 38-minute affair, in which he smashed 16 aces but went 0-for-6 in break-point chances.
Greek veteran Stefanos Tsitsipas took down Peruvian No. 5 seed Ignacio Buse 6-4, 6-4, winning 37 of his 48 service points (77.1%) along the way. No. 6 seed Juan Manuel Cerundolo rallied past Zdenek Kolar of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, while Frenchman Quentin Halys, German Yannick Hanfmann, Kazakhstan’s Aleksandr Shevchenko and Swiss wild card Jerome Kym also advanced.
Nordea Open
No. 8 seed Sebastian Baez dropped the first set before charging past Swedish hopeful Max Dahlin 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in Bastad, Sweden.
The other seeded players in action all held firm, as No. 5 seed Nuno Borges of Portugal beat French wild card Moise Kouame 6-4, 6-2; No. 6 Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands beat Japanese qualifier Taro Daniel 7-6 (0), 6-4; and No. 7 Thiago Agustin Tirante of Argentina eliminated Austria’s Sebastian Ofner 6-3, 6-4.
Other winners included Germany’s Daniel Altmaier, Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili, Bulgarian wild card Grigor Dimitrov, Argentina’s Lautaro Midon, Paraguay’s Adolfo Daniel Vallejo and Italians Andrea Pellegrino and Stefano Travaglia.
Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag
France’s Titouan Droguet won 11 of the final 12 games of his match to steamroll No. 5 seed Alexander Blockx of Belgium 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 in Umag, Croatia.
No. 7 seed Camilo Ugo Carabelli of Argentina avoided a similar fate as Blockx when he rallied from down a break in the second set to edge German qualifier Marko Topo 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Also advancing were Spaniards Pablo Carreno Busta and Daniel Merida, Argentines Roman Andres Burruchaga and Federico Agustin Gomez, Alex Molcan of Slovakia and Juan Carlos Prado Angelo of Bolivia.
–Field Level Media
