Bautista Agut Survives Munich Scare

Second seed Roberto Bautista Agut escaped from the brink of defeat on Wednesday at the BMW Open by FWU, rallying from 3-5 in the deciding set to reach the quarter-finals over Marius Copil 4-6, 7-6(3), 7-5.

The Romanian Copil captured the lone break of serve in the opening set at 2-2, but Bautista Agut came back from an early break down in the second set and dominated the tie-break to force a decider. Copil served for the match at 5-3 in the final set and came within two points of winning, but the Spaniard fought back to win the final four games and prevail in two hours and 28 minutes.

He improves his FedEx ATP Head2Head against Copil to 2-0 and looks to surpass his best Munich performance of a semi-final finish in 2015 (l. Murray).

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Awaiting him in the quarter-finals is German qualifier Yannick Hanfmann, who delighted the home crowd with a 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-5 win over eighth seed Thomaz Bellucci. The 25-year-old German saved a match point with Bellucci serving for the contest at 5-4 in the final set before ultimately scoring the upset in two hours and 19 minutes.

Hanfmann, currently No. 273 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, is making his ATP World Tour main draw debut this week. His best result this season prior to Munich was a quarter-final showing at the ATP Challenger Tour event in Bergamo.

Joining him in the quarter-finals is seventh seed Jan-Lennard Struff, who prevailed in an all-German battle against Tommy Haas 6-4, 7-5. Struff rallied from 1-3 down in the second set to win the first FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting between these players. Struff has been in fine form this clay season, reaching the quarter-finals in Marrakech and defeating Grigor Dimitrov en route to a third-round showing in Monte-Carlo.

Next up for him is third seed and #NextGenATP German Alexander Zverev, who defeated Jeremy Chardy 6-4, 6-4. The battle was a rematch of their quarter-final this February in Montpellier, which saw Zverev prevail in three sets. The German, who reached the semi-finals last year in Munich, improves his FedEx ATP Head2Head against Chardy to 3-0.

DOUBLES

Third seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah are the first team to reach the semi-finals after a 6-2, 6-4 win over Italians Fabio Fognini and Andreas Seppi.

In first-round doubles action, top seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic needed just 56 minutes to defeat Dino Marcan and Tristan-Samuel Weissborn 6-3, 6-2. They’ll play last week’s champions in Budapest, Brian Baker and Nikola Mektic, who moved past Julian Knowle and Alexander Peya 7-5, 4-6, 10-5.

Fourth seeds Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos eased past French duo Julien Benneteau and Jonathan Eysseric 6-3, 6-4. Next up for them is Mikhail Kukushkin and Sergiy Stakhovsky, who defeated Nenad Zimonjic and Mischa Zverev 6-4, 7-5.

German wild cards Gero Kretschmer and Alexander Satschko scored the upset of the day over second seeds Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi 7-6(2), 6-1, and will play the French duo of Chardy and Fabrice Martin.