Felix Fires Past Sonego In Rotterdam

Felix Auger-Aliassime made a perfect start to his title defence at the ABN AMRO Open on Tuesday.

The Canadian fired past Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-2, 6-3 to reach the second round in Rotterdam. The third seed saved the two break points he faced to advance to a second-round clash with Frenchman Gregoire Barrere after one hour and 22 minutes.

When Auger-Aliassime arrived in Rotterdam last year, he had not yet claimed an ATP Tour title and lost his first set of the tournament against Egor Gerasimov. He had no such difficulty against Sonego, whose spinny groundstrokes allowed the four-time tour-level champion to crush ball after ball from the baseline.

The defending champion also showed good feel around the net throughout the match to take a 2-0 ATP Head2Head lead against the Italian.

Hubert Hurkacz needed three hours to battle through the first match of the day, eliminating Roberto Bautista Agut 7-5, 6-7(7), 7-6(4). Bautista Agut had won the pair’s first three tour-level meetings, but Hurkacz saved six of the nine break points he faced to move on.

In other action, two-time Nitto ATP Finals champion Alexander Zverev ousted South Korea’s Soonwoo Kwon 6-4, 7-6(4) behind 10 aces. The German saved all three break points he faced and will next play Dutch wild card Tallon Griekspoor, who clawed past Swedish qualifier Mikael Ymer 7-6(7), 7-5.

“Every match for me is very important right now and obviously playing against very high-level players and having wins against them I think is very important for my confidence as well,” Zverev said. “We’ll see how this week goes, but I’m definitely excited for just every match that I’m going to play here.”