Roberto Bautista Agut entered Saturday’s ASB Classic final leading the tournament in service breaks. And when the championship was on the line against second seed Juan Martin del Potro, the Spaniard came through once more to capture his second Auckland crown (also 2016), battling past Del Potro 6-1, 4-6, 7-5.

The fifth-seeded Spaniard broke Del Potro in the 11^th game of the third set, taking advantage of a second serve and targetting the Argentine’s backhand on consecutive shots. A game later, Bautista Agut erased a break point and served out the match to win his seventh ATP World Tour title and his first of the new season.

“It’s been a fantastic week for me. I gave everything I have on the court this week,” said Bautista Agut, who battled for more than two hours against Del Potro and nearly three hours during his semi-final against Robin Haase.

“It was an unbelievable match today. I’ve been fighting a lot on the court… I played two amazing games at the [end] of the match.”

The 29-year-old Bautista Agut has now won his past three ATP World Tour finals, dating back to 2017 Chennai (d. Medvedev) and 2017 Winston-Salem Open (d. Dzumhur). The Spaniard, though, might be at his best in Auckland. He improved to 13-2 in the New Zealand city, and his service breaks were the key to his second title run at the ASB Classic.

Bautista Agut broke his opponents a tournament-high 19 times, converting 58 per cent of his opportunities (19/33). He had even better luck against Del Potro (4/5), despite the second seed’s strong play coming into the final.

The 2009 champion Del Potro hadn’t dropped a set before Saturday but, in the first set, Bautista Agut dominated, breaking Del Potro three times to gain a one-set lead after only 31 minutes.

Del Potro, however, returned to his regular tennis proceedings in the second set, using his serve to set up his forehand well, and he broke Bautista Agut in the 10^th game to force a decider.

The third set was as the score indicates: dead even. At 15/40, 5-5, Del Potro erased a break point with an ace but Bautista Agut saw a second serve on the next point, and took advantage before serving out the match.

“I think my game improved a little bit. I could play even better but Roberto did well at the end of the match,” Del Potro said. “Roberto is a great champion so congratulations to him.

“It’s a good start of the year for me. I didnt expect to reach a final in my first tournament of the year but I played well,” Del Potro said.

He will receive 150 ATP Rankings points and $47,105 in prize money. Del Potro will also return to the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings for the first time since 4 August 2014. He falls to 20-10 in tour-level finals.

Bautista Agut will receive 250 ATP Rankings points and $89,435 in prize money and is projected to remain at No. 21 in the ATP Rankings.

Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic have started the 2018 ATP World Tour season perfectly. For the second consecutive week, the Austrian/Croatian pairing went 4-0 to win an ATP World Tour doubles title.

Marach/Pavic beat Max Mirnyi and Philipp Oswald 6-4, 5-7, 10-7 on Saturday at the ASB Classic in Auckland for their second title of the year. In week one, Marach/Pavic captured the doubles crown at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha.

“We have a lot of confidence, played two good weeks. Now it’s time to recover and get sharp for Melbourne,” Marach said.

The champions saved seven of nine break points in the 90-minute contest.

“It was not an easy match today especially against Max. He has a lot of experience, and he played a good match. But I think it just helped us a little bit that we got a little edge in the beginning of the [Match] Tie-break,” Pavic said.

Ah, mid-January, one of the best times of the year for tennis fans. Our favourite sport is back and into full swing, with the first Grand Slam of the year, the Happy Slam, kicking into action.

But the start times of the matches in Australia, the time differences! Calm down. We say embrace the early starts, the 3 a.m. or 6 a.m. or (insert your alarm time here) beginnings. You can pick and choose which days you arise early, but definitely turn your phone alarm on high in time for these first-rounders in Melbourne.

View Draw | Read Draw Preview | Relive The 2017 Final Between Federer-Nadal

Frances Tiafoe (USA) vs. (12) Juan Martin del Potro (ARG)
FedEx ATP Head2Head Series: Del Potro leads 1-0

The #NextGenATP American against the one-time Grand Slam champion (2009 US Open) who played better than almost everyone to finish the 2017 season. Del Potro was 38-16 last year, but finished on a 20-5 run, which included a quarter-final (Paris, l. to Isner), two semi-finals (US Open, l. to eventual champion Nadal; Shanghai, l. to eventual champion Federer) and two finals (Stockholm, d. Dimitrov; Basel, l. to Federer).

Del Potro, who will return to the Top 10 on Monday for the first time since 4 August 2014, is starting well in 2018, too. The second seed in Auckland will play for his second ASB Classic title on Saturday against fifth seed Roberto Bautista Agut.

Read More: Del Potro Sets Sights On Auckland Crown

But Tiafoe also prefers the big stages and the blinding lights. The 19-year-old, who is the third-youngest player in the Top 100, nearly shocked Roger Federer in the first round of the 2017 US Open, falling 6-4 in the fifth. “I want to win matches like this,” Tiafoe said after the defeat. “I feel like I can play against anyone in the world. Now it’s a matter of finishing these types of matches.”

David Ferrer (ESP) vs. (30) Andrey Rublev (RUS)
FedEx ATP Head2Head Series: First Meeting

At first glance, it might look as if we’ve misplaced the 30^th seed marking. Shouldn’t Ferrer, the 27-time ATP World Tour titlist and one of the all-time maximisers of talent, have the number next to his name? Ferrer is close, at No. 38 in the ATP Rankings. But Rublev has rightly earned the seed.

The #NextGenATP Russian celebrated his maiden ATP World Tour title last July in Umag and has provided plenty of supporting evidence since that triumph. At the US Open, Rublev, then 19, upset two year-end Top 10 players (Dimitrov, Goffin) to become the youngest US Open quarter-finalist since Andy Roddick in 2001. Rublev played his way into an Australian Open seed by reaching the final at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (l. to Monfils) in Doha during week one of the 2018 season.

Thus far in the new campaign, Ferrer has resembled his former World No. 3 self more than his No. 38 self. Ferrer reached the ASB Classic semi-finals in Auckland before falling to Delpo.

The 35-year-old Spaniard will certainly have the experience edge against Rublev. Ferrer is making his 16^th consecutive appearance in Melbourne, which is the sixth-most appearances of all-time. The two-time semi-finalist (2011, 2013) is 41-15 at the Australian Open. His first-round record: 13-2.

(11) Kevin Anderson (RSA) vs. Kyle Edmund (GBR)
FedEx ATP Head2Head series: Anderson leads 1-0

If you like your tennis big and powerful, set three alarms to watch the 6’8” Anderson try to tee off against the 6’2” Edmund, who also likes his tennis served with force. Anderson has never advanced past the fourth round in Melbourne, but he has maybe also never been playing as well as he is right now.

The South African, who reached his maiden Grand Slam final at the 2017 US Open (l. to Nadal), is a spot away from his career-high ATP Ranking (No. 10) and spent week one reaching his 14^th tour-level final. Anderson fell to Frenchman Gilles Simon at the Tata Open Maharashtra in Pune.

Edmund, the top Brit playing in Melbourne, has shown an impressive fighting side so far this season. Before 2018, the 23-year-old had played in 40 deciding sets and won only 35 percent of them (14-26), according to his FedEx ATP Win/Loss Record.

But during week one at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Edmund toughed out two three-setters, defeating future rivals Hyeon Chung of South Korea and #NextGenATP Canadian Denis Shapovalov. In the quarter-finals, Edmund fell 6-4 in the third set to World No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov.

Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) vs. Denis Shapovalov (CAN)
FedEx ATP Head2Head Series: First Meeting

Years from now, this could be an Australian Open final. But for now, it’s an enticing look into the future of the ATP World Tour and possibly a preview of who we’ll see at the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

Tsitsipas, 19, is the second-youngest player in the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings; Shapovalov, 18, is the youngest. But the 19-year-old Greek, whose forehand in Doha had television commentators remembering a certain American great named Pete, has gotten off to a better start in 2018. Tsitsipas reached his second ATP World Tour quarter-final at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha (l. to No. 5 Thiem) during the season’s first week.

Shapovalov, meanwhile, is 1-2 after a first-round loss to Edmund in Brisbane and a second-round defeat against Del Potro in Auckland. The 18-year-old remains upbeat about his chances in Melbourne. It will be both players’ first main draw showing at the Australian Open.

“I’m pretty optimistic for the next tournaments,” Shapovalov said.

(19) Tomas Berdych (CZE) vs. Alex de Minaur (AUS)
FedEx ATP Head2Head Series: First Meeting

This first-round match has danger pasted all over it for Berdych, who’s seeking his first Grand Slam title in his 57^th Grand Slam appearance. This will be Berdych’s 15^th Australian Open. The 32-year-old Czech has reached the semi-finals at every Grand Slam, including twice in Australia (2014, 2015).

The World No. 20 ended his 2017 season after the China Open in Beijing last year because of a back injury. It was his first season without a title since 2013. He lost in the second round of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha to German Jan-Lennard Struff to start the season.

#NextGenATP Aussie de Minaur is on quite the opposite trajectory. Few players have started the year better than the 18-year-old from Sydney. De Minaur, who counts Aussie legend Lleyton Hewitt among his mentors, reached the semi-finals at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp (l. to Harrison) and will play in the final of the Sydney International on Saturday evening against Russian Daniil Medvedev.

De Minaur has won 11 of his past 12 matches and is the youngest player to make the Sydney final since Hewitt won the event in 2000. In Melbourne, he’ll be seeking his second Grand Slam victory (also 2017 Australian Open) with the home crowd behind him.

14 Novak Djokovic (SRB) vs. Donald Young (USA)
FedEx ATP Head2Head Series: Djokovic leads 2-0

It’s one of the most intriguing questions of the 2018 Australian Open: How will Djokovic fare? No one has won the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup more than Djokovic, who, with six titles, is tied for the all-time lead with Roy Emerson. Seven wins during the next two weeks and Djokovic will stand alone.

But the 14^th seed hasn’t played a tour-level match since the 2017 Wimbledon quarter-finals (ret. Berdych) and fans and pundits alike will be inspecting his match, searching for answers for the following questions: How will his surgically-operated on right elbow do under match pressure, and just how match-tested is the elbow that caused Djokovic to miss the last four months of the 2017 season?

The Serbian isn’t facing an “excited-to-be-here” rookie, either. Young, No. 63 in the ATP Rankings, has posted his best Grand Slam results on hard courts. The 28-year-old American made the fourth round of the 2016 US Open, and his two ATP World Tour finals came on hard courts as well.

American Bjorn Fratangelo has begun his past two Grand Slam seasons in Australian Open qualifying, and ended up in the main draw twice — in 2016 as a lucky loser and last season by winning all three matches. The 24-year-old is one match from making the main draw for the third year in a row after beating #NextGenATP Hungarian Zsombor Piros, who won the junior title in Australia last year, 6-3, 6-4, on a rain-logged Friday in Melbourne.

“Conditions were different today – it was a lot more humid, which made things a little bit slower,” Fratangelo said. “I didn’t know his game at all, but I knew that he won juniors here last year. He’s definitely a good little player.”

The World No. 107 next plays an opponent who has also competed in the past two Australian Open main draws, Quentin Halys, who won 85 per cent of first-serve points to overcome Pedja Krstin 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 in one hour, 37 minutes. Fratangelo and Halys have split two meetings on the ATP Challenger Tour.

Watch Live Streaming Of Qualifying From Melbourne Park

Peter Polansky went eight years between his first (2009) and second (2017) appearances in Melbourne’s main draw, but he put himself within two sets of his second in a row with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over American Christian Harrison in 75 minutes.

The Canadian’s next opponent is the winner of the final completed match of the day, Yuki Bhambri, who blitzed #NextGenATP Spaniard Carlos Taberner 6-0, 6-2 in 57 minutes. The Indian won the Australian Open as a junior in 2009. Polansky and Bhambri have played two non tour-level matches, with each player triumphing once.

Several matches were postponed for the day due to the rain, with #NextGenATP Duckhee Lee saving one match point in a second set tie-break before his second-round battle against Frank Dancevic was halted at 4-6, 7-6(8). Four other matches were halted in the first set, while Belgian Ruben Bemelmans will resume play against Viktor Galovic with a 5-7, 6-4, 4-3 lead.

Max Mirnyi, who is contesting his 25th season as pro, recorded his 1,000th singles and doubles match win on Friday when he partnered Philipp Oswald to the ASB Classic final.

The 40-year-old Belarusian has now notched 756 doubles victory and 244 as a singles player. He has a 50-44 record in doubles title matches, with his lone singles crown coming at the 2003 ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament (d. Sluiter).

Mirnyi and Oswald booked their places in a second ATP World Tour final as a team (2017 VTB Kremlin Cup) with a 7-6(7), 7-6(6) victory over second seeds Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus in one hour and 39 minutes.

They will take on in-form Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, who captured last week’s Qatar ExxonMobil Open title (d. Murray/Soares), in Saturday’s final. Read Doha Report

Marach and Pavic will look to improve upon their 2-3 record in tour-level finals after they defeated third seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Julio Peralta 6-4, 4-6, 10-6 in 78 minutes.

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