Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci ended a six match losing streak in Kitzbuhel today as he beat Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-2 5-7 6-4.
The Brazillian, who has been in terrible form of late and lost his last six ATP World Tour matches prior to today’s victory, broke four times in a match that lasted under two hours. Bellucci won 78% of his first service points as he won an epic contest in Austria. Today’s win will come as a big sigh of relief for Bellucci as he has had 11 first round exits in 2017. He will now play Jan-Lennard Struff or Tommy Haas in the second round.
Home wildcard Sebastian Ofner was leading Nikoloz Basilashvili 7-5 3-0 before his Georgian opponent retired due to an injury. The Austrian who reached the third round at Wimbledon took advantage of an unusual opponent in Basilashvili who can retire for no particular reason in matches. Ofner now faces top seed Pablo Cuevas in the second round, who hasn’t returned to his usual for since Roland Garros.
Joao Sousa continued his revitalised form as he beat Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-7(4) 6-3 7-5. The World number 62 won 84% of his first service points as he continued the good form that he created in Gstaad last week. Sousa will now play third seed Paolo Lorenzi in the second round.#
The other two winners of the day were both Serbian as Dusan Lajovic and Miljan Zekic both scored victories. Lajovic set up a meeting with fourth seed Gilles Simon after a 7-5 7-6(4) win over Maximillian Marterer. While Zekic beat Andrey Kuznetsov 7-6(4) 7-6(6) to play Gstaad champion Fabio Fognini in the next round.
