Kukushkin Fights Back To Beat Paire In Nur-Sultan
Mikhail Kukushkin played with great pride on Thursday at the Astana Open, recovering from a set and 1-4 deficit against Benoit Paire for a place in the quarter-finals.
Kukushkin recorded his sixth victory of the season with a 6-7(4), 7-6(2), 6-1 win over Paire in two hours and 14 minutes at Kazakhstan’s first ATP Tour 250 event.
Kukushkin broke at 2-4 in the second set, played aggressively in the tie-break and won the first three games of the decider. The 32-year-old will next contest his first ATP Tour quarter-final for 13 months (2019 St. Petersburg Open) against Finnish qualifier Emil Ruusuvuori.
Ruusuvuori advanced to his first tour-level quarter-final by beating eighth seed Jordan Thompson of Australia 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 in two hours and three minutes.
[WATCH LIVE 2]Third seed Adrian Mannarino needed just 62 minutes to sweep past Japanese qualifier Yuichi Sugita 6-1, 6-1 for a place in the quarter-finals.
Mannarino won nine straight games from 0-1 in the first set and will next face American Mackenzie McDonald, who knocked out Italian wild card Andreas Seppi 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in just over two hours. McDonald is through to his first ATP Tour quarter-final since February 2019 at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC (l. to Nadal).