No. 7 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece worked his way past Jenson Brooksby 6-4, 7-6 (6) in the opening round of the Winston-Salem Open on Monday in North Carolina.
Tsitsipas fired seven aces and won 37 of his 50 first-service points (74%), but Brooksby managed to save three match points in the 10th game of the second set en route to forcing a tiebreaker. Brooksby had set point at 6-5 on Tsitsipas’ serve, but the former World No. 3 won the next three points to cement his victory.
Tsitsipas is vying for a second tournament title this summer after he claimed the ATP 250 crown in Gstaad, Switzerland, in July.
Monday was also a day for the lucky losers, as four players withdrew before the start of the U.S. Open tune-up. Two of the players who took their place in the main draw prevailed, as India’s Dhakshineswar Suresh topped Marcos Giron 6-3, 7-5 and Frenchman Hugo Grenier outlasted Russian Roman Safiullin 7-6 (6), 4-6, 6-3.
Other winners included Martin Damm, Aleksandar Kovacevic, France’s Benjamin Bonzi, Dutch qualifier Mees Rottgering, Italian Lorenzo Sonego and Australians James Duckworth, Cruz Hewitt and Adam Walton. The last match in progress Monday night pitted German 16th seed Daniel Altmaier against Argentina’s Francisco Comesana.
–Field Level Media
