It was an opening night to remember in Acapulco, Mexico, as fans sat in awe, unable to believe what they were seeing.
It’s difficult to know where to begin, but let’s start with veteran Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, who was inches away from beating American John Isner.
After so many knee and elbow injuries, the former world number seven battled back impressively from losing the opening set 7-5, by taking a second-set tie-breaker.
There Verdasco excelled with some stunning shots, reminiscent of why he was a former top ten player back in the noughties.
Everything was running smoothly as the world number 152 raced into a 3-0 lead in the final set and was 5-3 up and serving for the match.
He then capitulated, allowing Isner back into the match.
As soon as he surrendered the vital break, his shoulders slumped, and former world number eight Isner, won three successive games, before sealing the final set-breaker, much to the disappointment of Verdasco.
Isner triumphed 7-5, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-3) as the American saved victory from the jaws of defeat, and goes on to face the winner of Cameron Norrie and Daniel Altmaier.
At the exact same moment that Verdasco seemed on the cusp of victory, the same line of symmetry was occurring over on Grandstand Caliente, as Sebastian Korda was a game away from winning as well.
After losing the opening set to veteran Serbian Dušan Lajović, he battled back to take the second and carried the momentum into the final set and forged a 5-3 lead.
But the youngster succumbed to nerves as Lajović reeled off four straight games to secure an impressive 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 victory.
If the Isner-Verdasco match hadn’t given Stadium enough drama for one night, Stefan Kozlov vs Grigor Dimitrov, also, left fans on the edge of their seats.
Lucky loser Kozlov might just be the luckiest man in tennis right now, as stomach cramps meant that fellow American Maxime Cressy withdrew shortly before play commenced.
And boy did Kozlov take the opportunity as he went toe-to-toe with the world number three, saving set point to take the opening set tie-break.
Dimitrov was guilty of some glaring misses, one of which left him on his knees, head in his hands, as the crowd gasped.
He did however bounce back to take the second set, but more mistakes in the final set gave Kozlov a victory to remember.
It was notably, the longest ever men’s match in Acapulco’s history, at 3 hours and 21 minutes, overtaking Isner-Verdasco, which had earlier set the record.
For Dimitrov, he looked a shadow of the player that once swept all before him on the ATP Tour, and must regroup fast with Indian Wells and the Miami Masters on the horizon.
Current world number three Alexander Zverev survived a huge scare as American Jenson Brooksby took him all the way in a 3-hour, 20-minute marathon.
The California native took the opening set 6-3 and was inches away from victory himself, like Verdasco and Korda earlier on, but Zverev dug in to seize an epic second set tie-break 12-10.
After going so close, the American wilted somewhat as Zverev stormed away to seal it 3-6, 7-6 (12-10), 6-2.
If those four matches were the height of drama, the remaining three were much more straight forward in narrative.
Another lucky loser, Peter Gojowczyk, outlasted American Brandon Nakashima 6-4, 6-4 and faces fellow German, Zverev, next.
America’s Taylor Fritz saved four break points to convincingly beat tricky Frenchman Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 6-3.
After the match, I asked Fritz during press if he felt he had bounced back from his agonising five-set defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas in Australia.
He replied that he had, and, ‘it was just a few points that could have gone either way.’
There was also a routine win for Spain’s two-time US Open semi-finalist, Pablo Carreño Busta, who saw off German qualifier Oscar Otte, 6-2, 6-4.
