Alexander Zverev strengthened his chances of booking a second consecutive appearance at the Nitto ATP Finals on Tuesday at the China Open. The second seed improved to 6-2 in Beijing with a 6-4, 6-4 first-round win against Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.

Zverev, playing his first match since losing in the third round of the US Open (Kohlschreiber), stumbled after breaking early but recovered and served out the first set to love. The second set followed a similar script, as Zverev looked in control but was broken while serving for the match at 5-2. He clinched the first-round match, however, on his third match point after 90 minutes.

Zverev will next face Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri. The 21-year-old German is currently in fifth place in ATP Race to London. The top eight will qualify for the prestigious season finale, to be held 11-18 November at The O2 in London.

Buy Tickets Now

Italy’s Fabio Fognini, who has an outside chance of making his debut at the season-ending tournament, advanced 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 against Moldova’s Radu Albot. Fognini is in 11^th place in the Race, 1,405 points behind eighth-placed Kevin Anderson. Fognini will next face #NextGenATP Russian Andrey Rublev, who sped past Portugal’s Joao Sousa 6-0, 6-4.

Third seed and 2016 finalist Grigor Dimitrov started his China Open campaign with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over American lucky loser Tennys Sandgren on Tuesday over 83 minutes. The Bulgarian, who is hoping to finish the season strongly, recorded his 15th hard-court match win of 2018 (23-16 overall) and will now prepare to face Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic in the second round.

“It’s never easy when you’ve never played against a guy,” said Dimitrov. “So I think it took me quite a few games to kind of get in a rhythm, see what kind of game plan he had [and] just try to get comfortable in the match. I think the first set was obviously the tough set. After that, I kind of picked up my pace a little bit more, I started playing a little bit more aggressive. I think, also, I was moving well.”

Dimitrov opened a 5-2 lead in the first set, but had his serve broken in the ninth game. He converted his fourth set point opportunity to break Sandgren, a late replacement for Ryan Harrison, for the 43-minute opener and then took firm control by winning the first three games of the second set. Harrison pulled out prior to the match due to a back injury.

Spain’s Fernando Verdasco is one win from reaching the Beijing quarter-finals for the third time (2009 and 2011) after scraping past Gael Monfils, the Frenchman making his debut at the tournament, 2-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(5) in two hours and 23 minutes. Verdasco recovered from 0/4 down in the deciding set tie-break and now awaits the winner of sixth-seeded American Jack Sock and Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia.