ATP Challenger Tour: Opening successes for Sebastian Ofner and Filip Misolic, Jurij Rodionov loses
While there were first-round successes for Sebastian Ofner and Filip Misolic on the ATP Challenger Tour, Jurij Rodionov had to admit defeat right from the start.
by Stefan Bergmann
last edit:
Apr 11, 2023, 05:17 pm
The singer "Meat Loaf", who has unfortunately already died, sang "Two out of three ain't bad" in 1978 - and the Austrian tennis professionals stuck to this saying of moderate modesty on Tuesday on the ATP Challenger Tour. Sebastian Ofner opened the clay court event in Madrid with a two-set win over local hero and qualifier Javier Marti. The Styrian, seeded fifth in the Spanish capital, prevailed 7:5, 6:4 and can now compete against the German lucky loser Henri Squire for a place in the quarter-finals.
At the ATP Challenger tournament in Split, which was also endowed with 73,000 euros, sixth-ranked Filip Misolic from Graz managed a 6: 3, 6: 3 win over Romanian Nicholas David Ionel. Now it's up to Grazer against Elias Ymer of Sweden, who defeated Kimmer Coppejans from Belgium in three sets. Ymer had previously struggled through qualifying. There was no further sense of achievement for Jurij Rodionov: The Lower Austrian lost his opening game in southern Croatia against the Australian Marc Polmans - who started the clay court event with a protected ranking - 4: 6, 6: 4, 3: 6.