In a day where a number of seeds fell in early exits, it was Jozef Kovalik (3) who suffered the ignominy of being the highest ranked player knocked out on day one of Australian Open Qualifying.
The third seed fell in straight sets to the unseeded Argentinian Marco Trungelliti. Trungelliti enjoyed a sensational run at the tournament last year, qualifying and making it through to the third round. The rest of his year did not meet early high standards and the rest of his 2016 was disappointing. He has got off to a great start in Melbourne once again though.
Other high seeds struggled, with Radek Stepanek (1) and Frances Tiafoe (2) both dropping the second sets in their respective wins over Sekou Bangoura and Marco Cecchinato. Tim Smyczek (25) who is in Tiafoe’s section, progressed easily after defeating Jordi Samper-Montana in straight sets, whilst Stepanek’s draw is now devoid of other seeds after Norbert Gombos’ (27) loss to Kenny de Schepper.
Go Soeda (29) escaped a tight first set where Ruben Bemelmans had served for the set, by breaking back and then taking the tie-break ten-eight before running away with the second set. There was more good news for the American contingent as Bjorn Fratangelo (6) and Ernesto Escobedo (21) both negotiated tough first round matches against Grega Zemlja and Maximilian Marterer in straight sets. There was disappointment though for Stefan Kozlov (7) who was blown away by the in-form Yuki Bhambri. Joao Souza (9) also fell losing to Brazilian compatriot Andre Ghem in three close sets.
Early play saw the loss of seven seeded players.
Results:
(1) Radek Stepanek defeats Sekou Bangoura 63 67 62
Blaz Kavcic defeats Matteo Donati 62 33 ret.
John-Patrick Smith defeats Agustin Velotti 76 63
Kenny de Schepper defeats (27) Norbert Gombos 64 57 97
(2) Frances Tiafoe defeats Marco Cecchinato 63 57 75
Yannik Reuter defeats Steven Diez 63 26 64
Mohammed Safwat defeats Pedro Sousa 76 64
(25) Tim Smyczek defeats Jordi Samper-Montana 63 63
Marco Trungelliti defeats (3) Jozef Kovalik 63 63
Peter Gojowczyk defeats Saketh Myneni 60 62
Adrian Menendez Maceiras defeats Daniel Brands 36 76 64
(29) Go Soeda defeats Ruben Bemelmans 76 63
(22) Peter Polansky defeats Tristan Lamasine 62 64
(6) Bjorn Fratangelo defeats Grega Zemlja 64 76
Stefanos Tsitsipas defeats Gavin van Peperzeel 62 61
Hiroki Moriya defeats Harry Bourchier 62 63
Uladzimir Ignatik defeats (19) Vasek Pospisil 36 63 64
Yuki Bhambri defeats (7) Stefan Kozlov 61 64
Pedja Krstin defeats Zdenek Kolar 36 61 75
Tatsuma Ito defeats Daniel Masur 64 76
(21) Ernesto Escobedo defeats Maximilian Marterer 76 75
Miljan Zekic defeats (8) Benjamin Becker 64 57 108
Di Wu defeats Maverick Banes 61 61
Ivan Dodig defeats Amir Weintraub 62 62
Laslo Djere defeats (24) Andrej Martin 60 62
Andre Ghem defeats (9) Joao Souza 62 57 86
Yuya Kibi defeats Brian Baker 63 76
Akira Santillan defeats Elias Ymer 63 76
(31) Thomas Fabbiano defeats Bradley Klahn 64 67 63
(10) Lukas Lacko defeats Jeremy Jahn 62 63
Maximo Gonzalez defeats Enrique Lopez-Perez 76 76
Darian King defeats Jose Hernandez Fernandez 62 62
(18) Denis Kudla defeats Luke Saville 64 75
(11) Evgeny Donskoy defeats Dmitry Popko 36 61 97
Matthew Ebden defeats Andrey Golubev 61 62
Noah Rubin defeats Cedrik-Marcel Stebe 57 64 64
Marcelo Arevalo defeats Scott Jones 62 62
Alexander Sarkissian defeats (23) Henri Laaksonen 64 61
(13) Taro Daniel defeats Aldin Setkic 75 64
- Some late matches to be updated.
