French Veteran Richard Gasquet will drop to his lowest ranking in almost 19 years after losing his opening match at the ASB Classic on Tuesday.
The 37-year-old was beaten 6-3, 6-4, by compatriot Arthur Fils who reached the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open last week. Gasquet was the defending champion in the tournament and will now lose a series of points as a result of his loss. Despite winning 85% of his first service points, the world No.76 only managed to win half behind his second serve and was unable to break his opponent.
Gasquet was required to reach the final in Auckland to maintain his place in the top 100. It is the first time he has fallen out of the top 100 since April 2005 when Fils was only eight months old.
“He’s a great champion. He did an unbelievable career so I’m really happy to play on the court with him,” said Fils.
“But it was a nice match for my part and I’m really happy.”
19-year-old Fils is currently at a ranking high of 35th in the world and was runner-up at the Next Gen finals last month. He won his maiden Tour title last year in Antwerp and has recorded two wins over top 10 players so far in his career.
“It was a joy to play on centre court,” he said. “[Although] it was tough to play on the court. I lost a little bit of control of the balls, I think, but I served pretty good and I managed to break twice and hold my serve the whole match, so I’m pretty happy about it.”
Gasquet wasn’t the only player to crash out of Auckland who had previously won the title. Two-time champion Roberto Bautista Agut lost to Roberto Carballes Baena 6-4, 6-3. Carballes Baena raced to a 5-1 lead early on before accidentally falling into a corporate box after chasing after a ball. Despite losing momentum, he managed to regain control of the match.
“I had 5-1 and 0-40 and with the change of the ball, the match changed,” Carballes Baena said.
“He started to play more aggressive and he was playing really good.
“But the key was to finish the set with 6-4 and then I started to play again really good.”
Finally, Denis Shapovalov hit 11 double faults and 19 unforced errors during his 6-4, 6-2, loss to Sebastian Ofner. It was the first time the Canadian had played on the Tour since Wimbledon due to injury.
