18-Year-Old Ymer Stuns Verdasco In Stockholm

He’s played only two ATP World Tour matches but 18-year-old Mikael Ymer has already swept a former Top 10 player. The Swedish wild card dismissed Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 6-1 on Tuesday, needing only 70 minutes to eliminate the left-hander from the If Stockholm Open.

Ymer impressed the Swedish crowd with poise of a more experienced, higher-ranked player, not what they might have expected from the World No. 549 who made his ATP World Tour debut a year ago in Stockholm (l. to A. Zverev). The right-hander saved all three break points faced and broke Verdasco for the fifth time to clinch the match, his first ATP World Tour victory. Ymer will have a tall task in round two. He faces 6’11” Ivo Karlovic, the third seed.

Ymer’s older brother, 20-year-old Elias Ymer, a member of the ATP Next Generation, was less fortunate. He fell to German qualifier Tobias Kamke 6-4, 6-0 after 65 minutes.

Spaniard Nicolas Almagro, another former Top 10 player, delivered 17 aces in a 3-6, 7-6(1), 6-3 comeback victory against Japanese Yuichi Sugita. Almagro saved seven of eight break points in the two-hour, 18-minute match and will next face John Isner or Juan Martin del Potro.

German Dustin Brown also came back to win, advancing past Gilles Muller 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. Brown will next meet Malek Jaziri of Tunisia or American Jack Sock, the sixth seed.