MOUILLERON-LE-CAPTIF, October 4, 2021
The ATP Challenger indoor swing in France continues this week with the 8th edition of the €66,640 Open de Vendée held at the Vendespace Arena in Mouilleron-Le-Captif. Four qualifiers earned a spot in the singles main draw on Monday.
Qualifying top seed seed Zizou Bergs from Belgium cruised past Jan Zielinski of Poland 6-1, 6-3, winning 63 per cent of the total points played in only 54 minutes. The World No. 188 will play 17-year-old local wild card entry Arthur Fils in the first round of the main draw.
Evgeny Karlovskiy of Russia defeated Frenchman Kenny de Schepper 7-5, 6-2 and will next face Kamil Majchrzak from Poland. Titouan Droguet emerged victorious from the all-French encounter with Jurgen Briand, winning 6-4, 6-2. Droguet, who reached the quarterfinals at the ATP Challenger in Aix-en-Provence, will take on No. 7 seed Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania. Mats Rosenkranz of Germany fought past Szymon Walkow from Poland 6-7(1), 7-6(5), 7-6(2) to set a first-round clash with the tournament’s No. 1 seed and home favourite Benjamin Bonzi.
Main draw kicks off
Later in the day, main draw action kicked off. No. 8 seed Norbert Gombos of Slovakia beat Russia’s Roman Safiullin 6-4, 7-5 in one hour and 17 minutes and awaits the winner of the match between last week’s Open d’Orléans champion Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland and German veteran Tobias Kamke.
Constant Lestienne edged past Belgian Ruben Bemelmans 6-3, 3-6, 7-5. The 29-year-old Frenchman fired 17 aces and won 85 per cent of his first-service points to prevail after one hour and 53 minutes. Lestienne will next oppose a compatriot, either No. 6 seed Pierre-Hugues Herbert or wild card entry Kyrian Jacquet.
1er TOUR 🔥
Constant Lestienne, premier Français au 2ème tour de l’Open de Vendée 🇫🇷
Le Français s’est imposé en 3 sets face au Belge Ruben Bemelmans 💪🏼
6️⃣ 3️⃣ 7️⃣
3️⃣ 6️⃣ 5️⃣📸 Remy Chautard#ODV2021 #OpenDeVendée #Tennis #ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/Cpeg8TEwhI
— Open de Vendée (@OpenVendee) October 4, 2021
