Dzumhur Upsets Almagro In Umag

Damir Dzumhur came out on top in a first-round battle on Tuesday at the Konzum Croatia Open Umag, upsetting fifth seed Nicolas Almagro after nearly two hours of play, 6-2, 5-7, 7-5.

Almagro had the advantage when he was able to play first-strike tennis, winning all 11 points in the final set when he got his first serve in. But Dzumhur had greater success in more neutral rallies, winning a higher percentage of second serve points (58 per cent to 41 per cent) and overall return points (40 per cent to 31 per cent). Next up for Dzumhur is the winner of the match between Thomas Fabbiano and wild card Franko Skugor.

In other first-round matches on Tuesday, Teymuraz Gabashvili didn’t drop serve once in defeating wild card Nino Serdarusic, 6-4, 6-2. Gastao Elias saved all seven break points against him in the second set to record a convincing win over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 6-1, 6-2. Andrej Martin rallied from 0-4 down in the first set and saved a set point to defeat Sergiy Stakhovsky, 7-6(6), 6-4.