Stefanos Tsitsipas is one of the rising young stars of Greek tennis, and the seventeen year-old took full advantage of qualifying for the main draw in Launceston, by defeating British sixth seed Brydan Klein 3-6, 7-5, 4-2 (ret).
The Greek, currently ranked 573, is set to move up the rankings this week, and will face another teenager in the second round, nineteen year-old Blake Mott, who defeated Thomas Fancutt 4-6, 6-0, 6-2.
Stephane Robert, seeded ninth after the withdrawal of top seed James Duckworth with an elbow injury, had no trouble in dispatching Maverick Banes 7-6, 6-1 in one hour and fifteen minutes. Fourth seed Alexander Sarkissian had to withstand seventeen aces from the racquet of Matt Reid for a 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 win. The American hit fifteen aces of his own, and broke once each in the final two sets to disappoint Reid.
There was disappointment also for Italian fifth seed Matteo Donati, who was handily beaten 6-2, 6-3 by Benjamin Mitchell. Andrey Golubev beat Gavin Van Peperzeel 6-2, 6-4, and there were wins for Alez Bolt, and Max Purcell.
Selected picks for Wednesday’s matches (in bold).
Wednesday’s highlight match will be Omar Jasika against Matthew Barton. Jasika is the young talent against an opponent in arguably the form of his life at the moment.
Jarryd Chaplin faces Benjamin Mitchell, Andrey Golubev faces Takuto Niki, and Saketh Myneni faces Filip Peliwo in the other singles matches.
