STUTTGART, June 10, 2017
The grass court season on the ATP World Tour kicked off in Stuttgart on Saturday with the opening round of the qualifying into this year’s MercedesCup.
Top seed Lukas Lacko from Slovakia defeated German Daniel Brands 6-3, 6-4 to take on #NextGen ATP star Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan in the second round.
Second favourite Ruben Bemelmans also prevailed, rallying past Yasutaka Uchiyama from Japan. The 29-year-old from Belgium withstood 14 aces, breaking serve one time to celebrate a 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 victory in one hour and 50 minutes. Next up for Bemelmans will be Peter Gojowczyk from Germany.
Germans Yannick Hanfmann and Yannick Maden as well as Marco Chiudinelli from Switzerland and Marton Fucsovics of Hungary will also go head to head for a spot in the main draw.
Federer To Start Stuttgart Campaign Against Haas Or Herbert
Elsewhere at the venue of the TC Weissenhof, the tournament’s main draw ceremony took place, attended by local favourite Philipp Kohlschreiber, who will start his Stuttgart campaign against Marco Baghdatis from Cyprus.
Top seed Roger Federer, who will compete in his first match since lifting the trophy of the Miami Open in April,will open his title bid against the winner of the first round encounter between German veteran Tommy Haas and Pierre-Hugues Herbert from France. Federer reached the quarterfinals in Stuttgart last year, where he succumbed to Austrian youngster Dominic Thiem in three sets.
The bottom half of the 28-man-draw is led by Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who awaits the winner of the match between Russian Andrey Kuznetsov and Jerzy Janowicz from Poland. Third favourite Tomas Berdych from the Czech Republic will either play French veteran Stephane Robert or Stuttgart native Bernard Tomic of Australia.
