After five months of hard work, Lloyd Harris tasted tour-level victory once again Monday at the Mallorca Championships.
The South African delivered a dominant serving performance to oust seventh seed Bernabe Zapata Miralles 6-2, 7-6(2) and reach the second round at the grass-court ATP 250. It was a first tour-level victory since January for Harris, who came through qualifying to reach the main draw in Spain.
“It’s never easy. I feel like my preparation for the match was boosted by playing some matches in qualifying,” said Harris, who won 89 per cent (33/37) of points behind his first serve. “Obviously, he’s been doing really well… Playing in Spain, in front of a Spanish crowd [who gave] good support to him. I’m happy I got through.”
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The former World No. 31 Harris missed the second half of 2022 after undergoing wrist surgery and has built his comeback gradually. The 26-year-old holds a 10-5 record for the season on the ATP Challenger Tour but arrived in Mallorca off the back of four consecutive defeats at tour-level.
With that streak now snapped, Harris’ next test in Mallorca is a maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with his fellow qualifier Roman Safiullin. The World No. 94 Safiullin defeated #NextGenATP Jordanian Abdullah Shelbayh 6-1, 6-4 in his opening match.
In other Monday action in the Balearic Islands, the in-form Yannick Hanfmann charged past Pedro Cachin 6-2, 6-1 to set a second-round meeting against top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. Hanfmann is now 15-9 for 2023, a tally that includes a run to his maiden ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final in Rome.
Eighth seed Roberto Carballes Baena edged Ilya Ivashka 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 for his first tour-level win on grass since 2019. The home favourite next meets Corentin Moutet. American Christopher Eubanks held off his #NextGenATP countryman Alex Michelsen 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-5 to set a meeting against his close friend Ben Shelton.
Jordan Thompson improved his excellent recent grass-court record with a 6-3. 6-4 triumph against sixth seed Richard Gasquet. The ‘s-Hertogenbosch finalist Thompson is now 20-7 on the surface since the start of the 2022 season (including ATP Tour qualifying matches and ATP Challenger Tour matches).
The second seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina’s opening opponent in Mallorca will be Pavel Kotov. The lucky loser defeated Li Tu, the man he had lost to in the second round of qualifying, 7-6(4), 6-3.
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