The shocks continued in Hamburg as two more seeds departed in the second round of the 500 event. Following the exit yesterday of the top seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas, two more high-profile seeds lost out.
David Ferrer picked up his first title of the season last week, but the veteran Spaniard lost today to Argentina’a Federico Delbonis 7-5, 6-3. Delbonis, a qualifier, had never taken a set off Ferrer in three previous meetings but the Argentine broke six times to beat the former Roland Garros finalist.
Another seed to fall in second round action was the French 5th seed Benoit Paire. The mercurial but inconsistent talent fell to another Argentine, Nicolas Kicker. Kicker, 24, broke once in the first set, before the pair traded breaks in the second. Kicker edged the tiebreak to set up a quarter-final meeting with either Philipp Kohlschreiber or Gilles Simon.
The one seed to advance from play early in the day was 3rd seed Karen Khachanov. The Russian defeated Britain’s Aljaz Bedene 7-6, 5-7, 6-4.
Jiri Vesely defeated Fernando Verdasco in the first round, and he moved into the quarter-finals with a straight-set win over Horacio Zeballos.
Vesely will play either Leonardo Mayer or Jan-Lennard Struff in the next round.
