No. 2 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas came from behind to fight off Frenchman Gregoire Barrere 6-7 (6), 6-4, 7-6 (3) in opening-round play Monday at the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle, Germany.
Already up a set, Gregoire jumped to a 3-1 lead in the second but Tsitsipas won five of the next six games to take the second set. In the decider, both players held serve, leaving the match to the tiebreaker. Gregoire couldn’t convert three of his five serves, allowing the Greek to move to the second round.
Tsitsipas will face Nicolas Jarry of Chile in the second set after his 6-3, 7-5 defeat of another Frenchman, Corentin Moutet.
Top seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia had a much easier first-round match on the grass courts, topping Marcos Giron 6-4, 6-3. Medvedev hit 17 winners against one unforced error, but Giron also played a clean match, with 23 winners and four unforced errors.
Awaiting Medvedev in the next round is Serbian Laslo Djere, who eliminated Germany’s Oscar Otte 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Other winners on Monday were Brandon Nakashima over Sweden’s Mikael Ymer 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 and Canada’s Denis Shapovalov against Lloyd Harris of South Africa, 7-6 (1), 6-4.
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Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie, the fifth seed, delighted the local crowd with a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win over Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic in the opening round at the Queen’s Club in London.
It was Norrie’s first match on grass since last July, when he lost in the semifinals of Wimbledon to Novak Djokovic. He needed just 85 minutes to advance to the second round after hitting 27 winners — including eight aces — against just nine unforced errors.
Norrie was among three seeded players to win Monday. Lorenzo Musetti of Italy, the sixth seed, beat Great Britain’s Jan Choinski 6-4, 6-2, and eighth-seeded Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina dropped Tommy Paul 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-4.
Also moving to the second round were Americans Sebastian Korda and Ben Shelton, Diego Schwartzman of Argentina and Brit Ryan Peniston.
–Field Level Media