Nine-time champion Roger Federer played steadily enough to start his grass-court season on Tuesday at the NOVENTI OPEN in Halle.

The 37-year-old Swiss avenged his 2018 US Open fourth-round loss to John Millman to make the second round in Germany, beating the Aussie 7-6(1), 6-3.

Read More: Federer: ‘The Pressure Is High For Me Too’

Federer didn’t face a break point until he served for the match, and he saw only two on Millman’s racquet, both in the sixth game of the second set, when Millman hit a forehand off his back foot long to give Federer the break.

The top seed fell behind 0/30 in the next game but escaped danger by winning four straight points. Federer is making his 17^th Halle appearance and is trying to secure his first double-digit title haul at a single event.

Federer has also won nine titles at the Swiss Indoors Basel, his hometown tournament. Rafael Nadal is the only man in the Open Era to reach double-digit titles at a single event, with 12 Roland Garros titles and 11 trophies in Monte-Carlo and Barcelona.

Federer will next face Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who beat countryman Benoit Paire 6-4, 7-5 to improve to 4-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series. Federer leads his rivalry with Tsonga 11-6, but the Frenchman has won their past two matchups – at 2016 Monte-Carlo and 2014 Canada. The two have played on grass only once, a five-set win for Tsonga in the 2011 Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff picked up his first win at his home ATP 500 tournament (1-6), beating Serbian Laslo Djere 6-4, 6-4. Struff, playing at a career-high No. 35 in the ATP Rankings, improved to 22-14 this season and will next meet third-seeded Russian Karen Khachanov.

Read More: The Difference For Struff? He Has An Opinion

France’s Richard Gasquet, a three-time grass-court titlist, won 81 per cent of his service points and beat German Peter Gojowczyk 6-3, 6-4 in only 70 minutes. Gasquet will next play seventh seed Roberto Bautista Agut. The Spaniard didn’t face a break point and beat American Taylor Fritz 7-6(10), 6-0

Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo have won 10 tour-level titles since beginning their full-time partnership in 2017. And not only have they qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals in both of their seasons together, but they are currently the highest-ranked ATP Doubles Team.

The secret to their success is not a specific skill, but that they are not satisfied.

“I think the most important thing is to keep improving and to keep changing. New teams are playing, they’re playing differently. We cannot be playing the same way always because they know what we’re going to do,” Melo told ATPTour.com. “I think the key is to keep improving and changing and looking what other teams are doing for us to keep doing good results.”

This is the Polish-Brazilian duo’s third full season as a team, but they showed signs of what they are capable of even before that. In 2015, they competed together for the first time in Vienna, while Melo was still partnering Ivan Dodig. They won that tournament.

The following year, Melo and Dodig decided to end their five-year partnership, so Melo approached Kubot about playing some tournaments together late in 2016 to see how it would go. Melo and Kubot triumphed in Vienna again, making the decision to become a full-time team easy.

But the wins did not pile up as easily early in 2017, as they lost five of their first nine matches that season, winning multiple matches at an event just once through five tournaments.

“Normally when you start a team you want to play a lot together. You put a lot of pressure on yourselves and want the results tomorrow. Sometimes it’s not like that,” Melo said. “You need to get used to how each other plays and we started not so great, but after two, three months we started playing better together, playing as a team.”

Kubot and Melo won six tour-level titles that year, including three ATP Masters 1000 trophies and a Wimbledon victory. They finished the season as the year-end No. 1 ATP Doubles Team. But even after qualifying for the season finale at The O2 again last year, they are still looking for more ways to improve.

“We know our patterns and our opponents know our patterns, so we still look forward to improving our games every day and trying to be better,” Kubot told ATPTour.com. “Every time we sit down, we talk and we always look for ways to improve and look for something new we can add to our games.”

Melo noted that with the increasing presence of singles players competing on the doubles court, it can be tough given that there is plenty of film and statistics on them, and not always as much on their opponents. But they continue to adapt, reaching at least the semi-finals at three of this year’s first five Masters 1000 tournaments.

“I think we play different, me and Kubot. I have one way to play, Kubot has another way. So we are always changing. We don’t play the same way. We can change a lot during the matches,” Melo said. “We play very good Match Tie-breaks normally and in doubles today it’s very important to play very good Match Tie-breaks.”

Kubot and Melo hold a 41-17 record in Match Tie-breaks during their partnership, a winning rate of more than 70 per cent. After splitting sets, the Match Tie-break could go either team’s way, given it’s the first pair to win 10 points. But Melo doesn’t see it that way.

“I don’t agree that it’s a coin flip. I think no-Ad it is, but not Match Tie-breaks. Those are 10 points, so if sometimes you start down 4/1, 5/2, you still have a chance to come back,” Melo said. “You have to be always mentally strong to play Match Tie-breaks and even if you are up, you need to finish and if you are down, you have a chance to come back.”

It doesn’t hurt that they enjoy the pressure of those big moments, and they are never afraid to be aggressive when it counts the most.

“I think Marcelo has, for me, maybe, the best reactions of all the players at the moment on Tour, so his reactions are very good, he’s very quick at the net. He has very good volleys,” Kubot said. “He’s a player who’s made for the big shots, so he likes when there is more pressure on the court because he likes to take the responsibility on his shoulders.”

Kubot and Melo are the top seeds at this week’s NOVENTI OPEN, where they will try to win a third consecutive title. The top seeds begin their campaign against Dutchmen Wesley Koolhof and Matwe Middelkoop.

For a moment, you would have thought that Benoit Paire and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga were playing a game of football rather than a tennis match on Stadion Court at the NOVENTI OPEN on Tuesday.

Serving at 1-1 in the second set, Paire let slip his racquet after striking a serve. But instead of watching in disappointment as Tsonga’s return bounced past him, the World No. 28 got his feet involved, continuing the rally by playing foot-tennis. Eventually, Paire went for and missed a bicycle kick, but the crowd erupted with applause anyway. 

There was still business to get to, and Tsonga won the match 6-4, 7-5 to take a 4-1 lead in the pair’s FedEx ATP Head2Head series. The former World No. 5 will next play nine-time champion and top seed Roger Federer or Aussie John Millman.

Rain at The Queen’s Club, venue of the Fever-Tree Championships, is delaying the start of play on Tuesday.

The first of the day’s 10 singles and two doubles matches were scheduled to begin at 12 noon local time, but covers remain on the grass courts. At 2:30 p.m., tournament organisers revised the schedule.

REVISED SCHEDULE – TUESDAY, 18 JUNE 2019

CENTRE COURT start 3:30 pm
[7] S. Wawrinka (SUI) vs [WC] D. Evans (GBR) 
[1] S. Tsitsipas (GRE) vs K. Edmund (GBR) 
G. Dimitrov (BUL) vs [8] F. Auger-Aliassime (CAN) 

COURT 1 start 3:30 pm
[WC] J. Clarke (GBR) vs L. Pouille (FRA) 
[3] J. del Potro (ARG) vs D. Shapovalov (CAN) 
N. Kyrgios (AUS) vs A. Mannarino (FRA) 

COURT 5 start 3:30 pm
M. Fucsovics (HUN) vs [WC] F. Lopez (ESP) 
M. Cecchinato (ITA) vs [6] M. Raonic (CAN) 

COURT 6 start 3:30 pm
J. Chardy (FRA) vs M. Kukushkin (KAZ) 
A. de Minaur (AUS) vs [Q] A. Bedene (SLO) 

Adrian Mannarino entered Sunday’s Libema Open final having lost his first six ATP Tour championship matches. But the lefty would not be denied, defeating Aussie Jordan Thompson 7-6(7), 6-3 to earn his first crown. The 30-year-old had previously reached two grass-court finals, both in Antalya. But he finally broke through in ‘s-Hertogenbosch against Thompson, a first-time ATP Tour finalist.

ATPTour.com caught up with Mannarino after his win…

How does it feel to be holding your first ATP Tour trophy?
That feels pretty good. This is something I’ve been waiting for for a long time now. I’ve been losing many finals before achieving this first title, so it feels pretty good.

Was this a goal that you’ve had as a junior and did you think it would take this long, at age 30, to do it?
Actually I didn’t have a real goal when I was a junior. My ambition was to be one of the Top 100 players. With time I saw that my ATP Ranking was getting better. I was not far from getting a title. Ever since I got my first final in Auckland in 2015 I really wanted a title badly. It took time, but I finally made it and it’s something that I’ll have forever.

Did you go into your seventh final with a different mindset after losing your previous six?
Not really. I wouldn’t say that I’ve been handling my stress better than the other times. I don’t think the quality of the match was the best. But there is always a first time and actually I don’t really care about the way I played. I’m just happy that I finally made it and I feel that if I have to play another final in the future it is going to be way easier after winning a title already.

What do you think you did well during the week to put together five wins in a row for the first time?
I’ve been pretty consistent during the whole week. I’ve been playing with some really good players and I was not expecting to beat these kind of players, especially on grass. But I was feeling good on the court, I was enjoying my game and just battling all the time and I finally got through match after match. I don’t really know the reason why I finally won this week, but that’s alright.

You dropped the first set against Verdasco, Goffin and Coric. What does that require from you mentally to come back?
It was not that hard mentally. I was enjoying my game. It was a really cool match, especially against David. I like the way he’s playing. I always have a lot of fun playing against him. It was cool, I was feeling good on court after a couple months on clay courts where I was not playing my best. So I was just happy about the way I was playing and I finally got through some tough matches, but I was not thinking that much. I was just enjoying the moment.

Read More: The Maturation Of Mannarino

Now that you’ve won your first title, what are your next goals?
My goal is to try to do my best day after day, whether in practice or during my matches. I’m trying to be as professional as I can. I don’t think about goals in terms of rankings or tournaments, I’m just going on court every day and trying to do my best. So I’ll stay with that goal and see what the future will bring.

Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge who has helped you get to where you are today?
There are a lot of people of course, especially when I was a kid growing up playing at a little club. My parents have been doing a lot of sacrificing to get me to this level and also my family. I had a lot of coaches and physical coaches and I’d like to thank all the people who were involved in this project and finally made it possible for me to get a title and maybe more in the future.

Qualifier Nicolas Mahut defeated American Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 7-6(5) on Monday to reach the second round of the Fever-Tree Championships. But one of the most memorable moments of the match came at 5-5 in the second set.

Mahut was deep behind the baseline playing defence against the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals qualifier when he could not get to a ball in the backhand corner. However, the 37-year-old could not stop his momentum on the grass and eventually slipped and fell into a ballgirl. 

The Frenchman showed little concern about himself, immediately standing up to make sure that the ballgirl was alright. The World No. 191 went on to close out the match in the tie-break, hitting nine aces and winning 52 per cent of his second-serve return points in his one-hour, 22-minute triumph.

Down a break at 5-2 in the second set, Alexander Zverev could have cast his eyes to the seemingly inevitable third set against Robin Haase on Monday at the NOVENTI OPEN.

But the German kept his focus on what was in front of him, and didn’t even need to bother with a third set. The two-time Halle finalist (2016, 2017) beat Haase 6-4, 7-5 to make the second round at the ATP 500 event.

“This is probably one of my favourite tournaments and I’m always motivated here. Last year, I played with an injury here and lost first round and this year I really want to do well. I hope this was a good start for a good tournament for me,” Zverev said.

Zverev dug himself out of trouble to serve for the match at 6-5 in the second set, but needed more heroics to stave off the Dutch veteran. The second-seeded Zverev saved two break points while serving at 6-5, including one during a 41-shot rally that Haase ended when he sprayed a backhand wide.

Zverev fell to countryman Florian Mayer in the 2016 final and Roger Federer in 2017. Federer, a nine-time champion, is again the top seed at the grass-court event.

The 22-year-old Zverev will next face American Steve Johnson, who ended a three-match losing streak by beating Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-3. Johnson hit 13 aces, won 85 per cent of his first-serve points (29/34) and never faced a break point.

“He is someone who has an unbelievable serve, a very good grass-court game. He has won a [couple] tournaments on grass. He has a good forehand and a very good slice. He beat Philipp in straight sets, which also tells a lot,” Zverev said. “It won’t be an easy match but there are no bad players here. Therefore, there aren’t any easy matches here.”