APTOS, August 8, 2018
On the second day of the main draw event of the $100,000 Nordic Naturals Challenger presented by Santa Cruz County Bank, top seed Thomas Fabbiano of Italy defeated Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic 6-4, 7-6(0).
Kecmanovic is one of the most promising #NextGenATP players as he is ranked in the top 200 and only 18 years old. He showed his worth on Tuesday against seasoned veteran Fabbiano who proved that his best tennis is still
yet to come. The 29-year-old Italian’s career high ranking of World No. 70 and 13 years of being pro served him well, especially in the second set tiebreak where he prevented Kecmanovic from getting a single point. Fabbiano closed out the match after one hour and 30 minutes to face compatriot Stefano Napolitano in the second round.
Earlier in the day, qualifier Aleksandar Vukic from Australia defeated fifth seeded US-American Kevin King 6-1, 6-3, something very few were expecting. King was one of the favored to win the hard-court event at the Seascape Sports Club, so an upset from Vukic was quite a surprise.
Wild card entry Ulises Blanch from the United States went down in three sets to Joris de Loore of Belgium 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-4 after an intense battle, which lasted two hours and three minutes and showed the underdogs in this year’s Challenger are here to stay.
Lloyd Harris from South Africa, who clinched his maiden title on the ATP Challenger Tour in Lexington last week, continued his good run of form by knocking out No. 3 seed Quentin Halys.
Fourth favourite Thanasi Kokkinakis advanced to the second round with a comfortable 6-2, 6-2 win over fellow Australian Max Purcell. The match lasted only 56 minutes.
RESULTS – AUGUST 07, 2018
Men’s
Singles – First Round
[1] T. Fabbiano (ITA) d M. Kecmanovic (SRB) 64 76(0)
L. Harris (RSA) d [3] Q. Halys (FRA) 64 62
[4] T. Kokkinakis (AUS) d M. Purcell (AUS) 62 62
[Q] A. Vukic (AUS) d [5] K. King (USA) 61 63
[7] J. Clarke (GBR) d [PR] I. Marchenko (UKR) 63 26 63
S. Napolitano (ITA) d D. Novikov (USA) 64 63
L. Broady (GBR) d M. Polmans (AUS) 63 64
J. De Loore (BEL) d [WC] U. Blanch (USA) 63 67(5) 64
C. Eubanks (USA) d [Q] A. Ward (GBR) 63 64
Men’s
Doubles – First Round
T. Kokkinakis (AUS) / M. Reid (AUS) d [4] J. Erlich (ISR) / R. Roelofse (RSA) 36 62 10-7
H. Hach Verdugo (MEX) / A. Siljestrom (SWE) d [Q] J. Aragone (USA) / M. Redlicki (USA) 76(3) 16 10-7
