Verdasco closes to Main Draw that starts on Sunday
The Spanish beats Struff and moves to ‘qualy’ next round
Mallorca Championships Day 1 has completed on Saturday the first step of the qualifying round. The action on the courts of the Mallorca Country Club has started with the victory of Fernando Verdasco, which allows him to be just one step away from the final draw that will start on Sunday.
The Spanish player defeated German Jan-Lennard Struff (6-3, 6-4) and will have Alejandro Tabilo, third seeded player of the qualy, as the last obstacle for one of the four places in the final phase of the tournament. The Chilean needed two hours to overcome his match against the Austrian Lucas Miedler (3-6, 6-3, 6-4).
The first surprise of the opening day was the defeat of the top seed. Georgian Nikolosz Basilashvili lost in two tie-breaks to Mats Rosenkranz (7-6[5], 7-6[4]). The German will now face Swiss Antoine Bellier, who defeated Spaniard Carlos Taberner (6-3, 7-6[0]).
Second seed Jordan Thompson also had no setbacks to advance to the next round. The Australian needed less than an hour to eliminate Dragos Nicolae Madaras of Sweden (6-1, 6-1) and will now have to face Quentin Halys. The Frenchman had to come from behind against Andrey Kuznetsov in a close match decided in the sudden death of the deciding set (6-7[3], 6-1, 7-6[4]).
The fourth seed Denis Kudla got rid of the local player Marc Ktiri (6-0, 6-1). The American will meet Japan's Taro Daniel, who beat Finland's Otto Virtanen in two sets (7-5, 6-3).
Kick-off
The main singles and doubles draws will start in parallel on Sunday as soon as the qualy finals are resolved, which will start no earlier than 12:30 pm. Seventh seed Miomir Kecmanovic will face Slovakian Alex Molcan not before 3:00 pm. Also on center court, not before 5:00 p.m., Portugal's Joao Sousa will face American Mackenzie McDonald.
The highlight will come, not before 19:00 hours, with the last round on the main court of the match between Jaume Munar and Aslan Karatsev. The Mallorcan tennis player is playing at home for the second consecutive edition against an opponent against whom he will be looking for his first win after two evenly matched precedents. At the US Open 2021, the world No.38 won in four sets and did the same this year at the Australian Open in five sets.