POTCHEFSTROOM, March 10, 2020
The ATP Challenger Tour has returned to South Africa for the first time since 2013 with this week’s Potch Open held at the North-West University Potchefstroom Campus.
Dustin Brown booked a place in the second round of the very first ATP Challenger 50 event with a hard-fought straight-sets win over France’s Corentin Denolly on Tuesday. The 35-year-old German, who is seeded fourth in the hard-court tournament, struck 12 aces and won 74 per cent of his first-service points to prevail 7-6(4), 7-5 in one hour 20 minutes.
The 246th-ranked Brown, who is best known for beating Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2015, next plays the winner of the match between Austrian David Pichler and qualifier Jean Thirouin of France.
Thirouin defeated South Africa’s Pierre Malan in the final round of qualifying 6-7(2), 6-2, 7-6(5) earlier on Court 5 in two tight and tense hours.
Later in the day, No. 8 seed Lorenzo Musetti defeated Simon Carr from Ireland 6-2, 7-5. The 18-year-old Italian capitalized on four of his 10 break point chances to secure victory in one hour and 20 minutes. Musetti will next take on either Benjamin Lock from Zimbabwe or German qualifier Sebastian Prechtel, who will make his main draw debut at ATP Challenger level.
This week… the debut of the ‘Challenger 50’ series in Potchefstroom, South Africa.#ATPChallenger 🎾 returns to 🇿🇦 for the first time since 2013.
Draw ➡️ https://t.co/Kb6Q5jLiRg pic.twitter.com/GrzAbYbdea
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) March 9, 2020
Wednesday’s action at the Potch Open will see South Africa’s top junior and wild-card entrant Kholo Montsi face-off against Russian fifth seed Evgeny Karlovskiy, top seed and last week’s North-West University Open champion Benjamin Bonzi of France take on compatriot Matteo Martineau.
First Round Results:
Singles
Potch Open – ATP Challenger 50
Sadio Doumbia (FRA) bt Marek Gengel (CZE) 6-4 42
[4] Dustin Brown (GER) bt Corentin Denolly (FRA) 76(4) 7-5
Lorenzo Miedler (AUT) bt [WC] Vaughn Hunter (RSA) 6-2 3-6 6-0
