The second day of the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech served up a number of upsets as seeds number 5 and 6 were both sent crashing out.
The highest seed to fall was Teymuraz Gabashvili, although it must be said that claycourt tennis almost has a ranking of its own and there’s no shame in losing to Dani Gimeno Traver on the red stuff. The Spaniard, who has been playing on the Challenger Tour to bolster his ranking which has fallen just out of the top 100, has already played three events on clay this season and made the semi finals at the Rio Open after getting through qualifying, as well as being a finalist at this event twelve months ago. Gimeno took a rain-affected match 6-3, 6-4 and took to Twitter to express his delight, saying: “step by step. It was a tough match with a lot of changes because of the rain, Vamos!”.
The other seed to fall was Albert Ramos, who was ousted 7-5, 6-3 by Paul-Henri Mathieu in a clash of proven claycourters. The Frenchman lifted the trophy in Casablanca in 2007 and is experimenting a resurgence in his tennis, and proved it by beating Ramos for the second time this season. It mustn’t be forgotten that the Spaniard has notched up wins against Nick Kyrgios, Feliciano Lopez or Borna Coric so far this campaign.
The only seed who survived on a day of upsets was Jiri Vesely, and he did so with surprising ease against Iñigo Cervantes, who has been impressive so far in 2016 and, like most Spaniards, feels most at home on clay. The Czech blew his opponent away 6-1, 6-3 to record only his second win of the season.
Possibly the biggest name to play on the day was the unseeded Nicolas Almagro. The former top ten player continued to show that he is moving in the right direction, especially in comparison to 2015, with a routine 6-4, 6-3 win over Radu Albot. Almagro has already been a finalist on clay this year at the Argentina Open and will encounter a mouth-watering tie in the second round against doubles partner this week Guillermo Garcia Lopez.
Simone Bolelli defeated tricky Japanese opponent Taro Daniel 7-5, 6-4. Daniel, despite bearing the Asian country’s flag next to his name, lives and trains in Valencia and therefore has a game that adapts perfectly to clay, but the experienced Italian proved an obstacle to high.
Finally, Thiemo De Bakker and Denis Istomin also grabbed wins against wildcard Amine Ahouda and qualifier Lorenzo Giustino respectively.
The excitement returns tomorrow in Marrakech with the only remaining first round match, between Pablo Carreño and Evgeny Donskoy, getting proceedings underway.
