The first time Dominic Thiem played in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in 2014, he was a 20-year-old qualifier who lost in the first round of the main draw against the No. 162 player in the ATP Rankings.

Just four years later, the Austrian is a star on the ATP World Tour and he showed it in his 7-6(3), 6-3 victory over Evgeny Donskoy on Monday. The top seed, who is now ranked World No. 5, won a stunning 92 per cent of his first-serve points and overcame a strong performance by the Russian in the opening set to earn his first triumph of the new campaign.

“It was a good victory because [of a] tough opponent… after a pretty long period without any matches,” Thiem said. “After a good start, it got pretty close in the first set… at the end I’m satisfied with most parts of my game.”

Thiem will next face the winner between Aljaz Bedene and Malek Jaziri. He has beaten both players in their only FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings.

Seventh-seeded Fernando Verdasco appeared in jeopardy of beginning his 2018 in the opposite manner — with a thud. But a sudden shift in momentum saw the Spaniard run away with the final 10 games of his season-opener to defeat Dudi Sela 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.

The Israeli broke Verdasco three times to clinch the opening set and earned breaks in each of the left-hander’s first three service games in the second set to take a commanding 4-2 lead. But after breaking back for 4-3, Verdasco battled through a 12-point game on his serve — saving two break points, which if converted would have allowed Sela to serve for the match — to completely turn the momentum, which eventually led to his victory.

Verdasco’s next opponent will be 2017 Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up Andrey Rublev, who advanced to the second round when Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, who jumped 382 spots in the ATP Rankings last year, retired due to illness while trailing the Russian 1-6. The pair have split their two FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings, with Verdasco winning more recently at the 2017 Rolex Paris Masters.

Top Doubles Seed Survives

It was certainly a thrilling start to the doubles campaign for Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, who saved two match points before defeating Marcin Matkowski and Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi 3-6, 7-6(5), 10-5. The Polish-Pakistani pairing broke to serve for the match at 6-5 in the second set but could not convert on the opportunity.

The other seeded-team in action Monday had less trouble, as third-seeded Feliciano Lopez and Rajeev Ram ousted wild cards Malek Jaziri and Mousa Shanan Zayed 7-5, 6-2 in 61 minutes.

Spanish qualifier Ricardo Ojeda Lara had never played an opponent higher than No. 82 in the ATP Rankings. Yet in the first tour-level main draw match of his career at the Tata Open Maharashtra, the 24-year-old pulled off a major upset.

Ojeda Lara ousted sixth-seeded Jiri Vesely 6-3, 7-6(5) on Monday in Pune. The World No. 198 overcame the disappointment of failing to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set – when he missed out on two match points opportunities – to eventually close out the battle in the tie-break, converting on his fourth match point to earn the win of his career thus far. 

On Centre Court, the fifth time was the charm for World No. 89 Gilles Simon. After losing his first match of the year four straight times, the Frenchman got off to a strong start in 2018 at India’s ATP World Tour 250 event, defeating American Tennys Sandgren 6-4, 6-1.

The former World No. 6 showed signs of good form to begin the new campaign, breaking Sandgren’s serve five times to claim victory in 76 minutes. The 33-year-old will look to win two matches in a row for the first time since Bangkok in September 2017 when he faces defending champion Roberto Bautista Agut, against whom he owns a 4-1 FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead, in the second round.

The two other seeds in action managed to begin their seasons on a more positive note than Vesely. Seventh-seeded Mikhail Kukushkin battled through a tough 82-minute second set to defeat Moldova’s Radu Albot, 6-2, 7-6, setting an encounter against either Laslo Djere or Marius Copil. Eighth-seeded Pierre-Hugues Herbert had more of a hiccup, dropping a second-set tie-break before recovering to advance past Marco Cecchinato 7-6(4), 6-7(6), 6-2. The Frenchman will play one of two home favourites in the second round — Yuki Bhambri or wild card Arjun Kadhe.