German wild cards Tommy Haas and Florian Mayer upset third seeds Florin Mergea of Romania and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan 7-6(5), 2-6, 10-7 on Monday at the MercedesCup in Stuttgart.

Haas, 39, and Mayer, 33, saved four of seven break points and will next meet Marcin Matkowski of Poland and Max Mirnyi of Belarus. Matkowski/Mirnyi beat Spaniard David Marrero and Frenchman Benoit Paire 4-6, 6-3, 10-4.

Sixth seed and home favourite Mischa Zverev was ruthless on serve during his grass-court opener on Monday, winning 84 per cent of his service points (32/38) to beat Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri 6-3, 6-1 at the MercedesCup in Stuttgart.

Zverev hit seven aces and never faced a break point during the 54-minute victory. The 29 year old, who reached the Stuttgart quarter-finals in 2009 and 2015, is one of eight Germans in the draw and will next meet wild card and compatriot Yannick Hanfmann, who beat Hungarian qualifier Marton Fucsovics 6-3, 7-5.

“I think it was a good match, and I felt pretty comfortable based on the circumstances, it’s the first match after changing surfaces,” Zverev said.

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The left-hander said he benefited from an early start on the grass-court season and a more than competent practice partner. Zverev, who lost in the first round at Roland Garros, spent a week practising on grass courts in London with his brother, #NextGenATP star Alexander Zverev, who also fell in the first round in Paris.

“We played a lot of practice sets, and we had a lot of good battles. I think it definitely helped me to start off playing well today in the first round,” Mischa Zverev said.

Fifth seed Steve Johnson was forced to work hard during his MercedesCup debut to beat German wild card Maximilian Marterer 3-6, 7-6(2), 6-4. The American captured his first ATP World Tour title at last year’s Aegon International (l. to Cuevas), when the grass-court tournament was held in Nottingham. Johnson will next challenge Marcos Baghdatis or Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round.

German Jan-Lennard Struff also advanced, saving all eight break points to prevail past Slovakian qualifier Lukas Lacko 6-4, 7-6(3) in 89 minutes.

Eighth seed Aljaz Bedene struck eight aces and lost just 13 of his service points on Monday in a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Denis Istomin in 79 minutes at the Ricoh Open. It broke a two-match losing streak against Istomin. Bedene will now face a #NextGenATP player, Ernesto Escobedo or Hyeon Chung, in the second round.

“I played a solid match and although I lost the first set, I felt that I was the better player,” said Bedene. “I felt solid on my strokes and my movement was good, despite the rain in the first set when I was broken.”

Seventh seed Nicolas Mahut, the 2013, 2015-16 champion, began his campaign at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Dennis Novikov in 70 minutes. Mahut struck 15 aces to Novikov’s 13 aces.

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10 THINGS TO WATCH IN STUTTGART

Grass Circuit Opens: The six-tournament grass-court circuit leading into Wimbledon begins in Stuttgart and ’s-Hertogenbosch. The inaugural Stuttgart event was in 1898, with Mercedes-Benz assuming the role of title sponsor in 1979. This is the third year the event is being played on grass.

Federer Leads Field: Roger Federer is one of four Top 20 players who will receive first-round byes. The other Top 4 seeds are Grigor Dimitrov, Tomas Berdych and wild card Lucas Pouille.

Roger Returns: Federer is playing in his first event since winning the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title in Miami on 2 April. The Swiss star is 19-1 this season and on an 11-match win streak.

In his only loss of 2017, Federer held three match points against Evgeny Donskoy at Dubai on 1 March. Federer, who also won titles at the Australian Open and Indian Wells, is closing in on 10,000 career aces (9,940).

Grass-Court King: Federer’s 15 titles and 152-23 record on grass are the best in the Open Era (.869). He did not win a grass title in 2016 for just the third season since 2003. Federer was 10-3 on grass last season with semi-finals in Stuttgart (l. to Thiem), Halle (l. to A. Zverev) and Wimbledon (l. to Raonic).

Federer’s Conquerors: Two men who have defeated Federer on grass are in Stuttgart. Tomas Berdych beat Federer in the 2010 Wimbledon quarter-finals and Tommy Haas, a wild card this week, upset the Swiss in the 2012 Halle final. Federer has captured seven Wimbledon and eight Halle titles.

German Drought: Eight Germans will try to end a 25-year title drought in Stuttgart since Michael Stich was the last homegrown champion in 1991. Haas, the 1999 runner-up, is joined by fellow wild card Maximilian Marterer, No. 6 seed Mischa Zverev, two-time finalist Philipp Kohlschreiber, Florian Mayer, Jan-Lennard Struff, and qualifiers Peter Gojowczyk and Yannick Hanfmann.

Kohli Eyes Home Title: Kohlschreiber, who earned his 400th win at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on 11 March, continues to enjoy great success on home soil. The 33 year old has won five of his seven career titles in Germany. He is 110-58 in Germany (.655) and 295-257 elsewhere (.534).

Up-and-Down Season: Dimitrov went 16-1 to start the season with titles at Brisbane and Sofia, as well as a semi-final run at the Australian Open. He is 5-8 since 17 February with narrow third-round losses to Jack Sock at Indian Wells (held 4 MPs) and Dominic Thiem at Madrid (held 5 MPs).

Wild Cards: Haas, Pouille and Maximilian Marterer are the wild cards. The 39-year-old Haas is making his seventh and final appearance in Stuttgart, announcing that he will retire later this season. Pouille was 0-5 lifetime on grass before making a run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2016. The 21-year-old Marterer is looking for his first career ATP World Tour main draw win (0-7).

Doubles Field: Headlining doubles are 10-time World No. 1 duo Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, who are looking for their first title in 2017, and last year’s No. 1 team Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares. Mischa Zverev teams with Bernard Tomic of Australia for the first time, as does Steve Johnson with Feliciano Lopez.

10 THINGS TO WATCH IN ’S-HERTOGENBOSCH

Dutch Delight: The second Dutch event on the ATP World Tour takes place in ’s-Hertogenbosch. The 500-level event in Rotterdam was held in February. This is the 28th edition of the Ricoh Open.

Cilic Leads Field: Top 4 seeds Marin Cilic, Alexander Zverev, Ivo Karlovic and Gilles Muller are among the Top 30 players in the Emirates ATP Rankings, with Cilic and Zverev in the Top 10.

Marin Top Seed: Cilic arrives after compiling a career-best 12-4 record on clay, with his first Roland Garros quarter-final run and his 17th tour-level title in Istanbul (d. Raonic). He is 48-23 lifetime on grass, highlighted by the 2012 title at The Queen’s Club and three quarter-final finishes at Wimbledon (2014-16). Cilic was 17 when he made his only previous Ricoh Open appearance in 2006 (l. to Robredo in 1R).

Mahut Reigning Champion: Three-time champion Nicolas Mahut has an 18-2 record in ’s-Hertogenbosch. The 35-year-old Frenchman won titles here in 2013 and 2015 as a qualifier and last year as a wild card and No. 8 seed. He has a 10-match main draw winning streak at the Ricoh Open (13 with qualifying) and his last loss came in the 2014 quarter-finals (l. to Bautista Agut).

Zverev Rising: #NextGenATP star Zverev, a wild card making his tournament debut, leads the Emirates ATP Race to Milan. The 20 year old is 27-10 in 2017 with three titles, breaking into the Top 10 on 22 May after reigning in Rome. He reached his first final on grass at 2016 Halle.

See Who’s Pushing Zverev In The Emirates ATP Race To Milan

More #NextGenATP Players: Also in the field are 21 year olds Hyeon Chung and Thanasi Kokkinakis. After a series of injuries, Kokkinakis seeks his first tour-level singles win since 20 September 2015 (d. Evans in Davis Cup SF).

Americans Ernesto Escobedo and Stefan Kozlov are back. Last year Escobedo made his ATP World Tour debut (l. to Bedene in 1R), and Kozlov earned his first ATP World Tour victories (l. to Querrey in QF). Russian Daniil Medvedev, who is No. 8 in the Milan race, qualified.

Muller Moving Up: Last year’s finalist Muller is putting together his first Top 30 season after reaching a career-high No. 26 on 8 May. The 34-year-old Luxembourg native won his first ATP World Tour title in Sydney and was a finalist in Estoril.

Last year he had a career-best 13-5 record on grass with a final in Newport. He has a 9-7 tourney mark with a semi-final in 2015 and a quarter-final in 2012.

Ivo Back on Grass: Karlovic has the most grass-court wins of any player in the field (67). Last year, he won his third grass-court title in Newport and reached the semi-finals here (l. to Muller).

Dutch Title Hopes: No. 6 seed Robin Haase and 20-year-old wild card Tallon Griekspoor will both try to become the first Dutch champion of the Ricoh Open since Sjeng Schalken in 2003. Haase made his ATP World Tour debut at 2006 ’s-Hertogenbosch and reached the semi-finals here in 2015. Griekspoor is playing in his second ATP World Tour main draw (l. to Muller in 2017 Rotterdam 1R).

Doubles Draw: Roland Garros champion Michael Venus and finalist Santiago Gonzalez are in the doubles field with different partners than they had in Paris. Gonzalez teams with Adil Shamasdin and Venus with Andre Sa. In Paris, Gonzalez played with Donald Young and Venus with Ryan Harrison.

Rafael Nadal has broken back into the Top 2 of the Emirates ATP Rankings for the first time since 6 October 2014 as a result of a stellar clay-court swing that culminated in the Spaniard winning a 10th title at Roland Garros. It was his 15th Grand Slam championship title.

Having won 24 of his 25 matches on European red dirt in 2017, Nadal has put himself in prime position to finish the season as year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings for the first time since 2013.

The 31-year-old superstar, who has won 53 of his 73 crowns on clay courts, has spent 634 weeks in the Top 10 over the course of his illustrious career. He first broke into the elite list on 25 April 2005, shortly before he captured his first major title on Parisian clay.

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Two of Nadal’s Spanish compatriots also made notable rises. Pablo Carreno Busta, who beat Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic en route to the Roland Garros quarter-finals – his first appearance in the last eight of a major championship – rose four places to a career-high No. 17. Fernando Verdasco, who knocked out No. 10-ranked Alexander Zverev in the first round, rose five spots to No. 32 after reaching the Last 16 in Paris.

Kevin Anderson continues to rise back up the Emirates ATP Rankings, following a series of injuries. The South African, who defeated Nick Kyrgios in the second round en route to a fourth-round exit (l. to Cilic), jumped 19 places to No. 37.

The 21-year-old #NextGenATP Karen Khachanov moved up 14 places to No. 39 as a result of a Last 16 run (l. to Murray), which included a second-round victory over Tomas Berdych.

Czech Jiri Vesely is now seven places shy of his career-high (No. 35 on 27 April 2015) after a 15-place rise to No. 42 with a Roland Garros third-round exit (l. to Bautista Agut) and his third title at the Unicredit Czech Open in Prostejov (d. Delbonis). It was his sixth ATP Challenger Tour clay-court crown. Read ATP Challenger Spotlight

Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos was rewarded with an 18-spot rise to No. 47 by advancing to the fourth round of a Grand Slam championship for the first time (l. to Thiem). Meanwehile, Japan’s Yuichi Sugita captured his ninth ATP Challenger Tour title at the Aegon Surbiton Trophy (d. Thompson), earning a 14-place jump to a career-high of No. 64.

Also, 25-year-old American Tennys Sandgren broke into the Top 100 for the first time (at No. 100). Read Feature

Rafael Nadal is in pole position to finish the year at No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings after winning ‘La Decima’ at Roland Garros.

The Spaniard is looking to finish atop the year-end Emirates ATP Rankings for the first time since 2013 and for the fourth time in his career (2008, 2010, 2013). A 2,000 point add from Roland Garros, where he beat Stan Wawrinka in Sunday’s final, takes Nadal to almost 3,000 points ahead of second-placed Federer, who missed the whole clay-court swing.

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*bold denotes year-end No. 1

The year-end No. 1 (in bold) was either No. 1 or 2 in the Race after Roland Garros every year from 2004-16, with No. 1 in the Race finishing year-end No. 1 eight times and No. 2 five times.

It is quite the turnaround for Nadal, who finished 2016 at No. 9. But Nadal has earned the lead in the Emirates ATP Race To London after phenomenal performances in the first six months of the season, which have seen him and Roger Federer dominate on the ATP World Tour.

The 31-year-old Nadal finished runner-up to Federer in the Australian Open final and also lost out to the Swiss in the Miami final. But he has been almost unbeatable on the European clay. Apart from one defeat to Dominic Thiem in the Rome quarter-finals, Nadal has reigned supreme, winning his 10^th titles in Monte-Carlo (d. Ramos-Vinolas) and Barcelona (d. Thiem) and claiming his 30^th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown in Madrid (d. Thiem). He romped to the Roland Garros title for the loss of just 35 games.

All eyes now turn to Federer to see how the Swiss will respond in the No. 1 battle when the ATP World Tour moves to grass in the next five weeks. The 35-year-old makes his eagerly anticipated return to action at next week’s MercedesCup in Stuttgart.

Since 2004, the year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings has either been first or second in the year-to-date standings after Roland Garros.

Nadal has been among the top two in the year-to-date standings after Roland Garros in 11 of the past 14 years. This is the first time since 2010 that Nadal and Federer occupy the top two spots in the Emirates ATP Race To London at this stage in the season.  

It was 22 minutes of mayhem.

The match lasted two hours and five minutes, but the torturous time the ball was in play was just 21 minutes and 59 seconds. It must have felt like an eternity for Stan Wawrinka.

Rafael Nadal defeated Wawrinka 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 on Sunday afternoon at Roland Garros. From 2-2 in the first set, it was basically game over.

Overall, Nadal won 94 points to 57 (62%). The average point duration for the match was just eight seconds. Eight seconds of side-to-side, lactic acid domination. Eight seconds of Nadal running Wawrinka to whatever arrondissement of Paris he wanted him to go.

Wawrinka is so dangerous when he gets to step into a ball, but he spent the majority of the 22 minutes out wide on the edges of the court, playing defense against the best clay courter of all time.

Has Nadal ever played a better match than he did this afternoon in Paris? Maybe. Maybe not.

More: Nadal Reflects On ‘Perfect’ Roland Garros

Forehands

The most influential shot on the court was Nadal’s forehand. He only hit 14 forehand winners, but that was three more than Wawrinka’s 11. When Wawrinka defeated Novak Djokovic to win the Roland Garros title in 2015, Wawrinka crushed 60 total winners. Today he could not even manage a third of that (19). Wawrinka hit 26 forehand winners against Djokovic, but just 11 against Nadal.

The flow of rallies constantly saw Nadal hitting deep, aggressive forehands, while Wawrinka was on defense out wide on the edges of the court. Wawrinka made 20 forced errors on his forehand side and 17 unforced. Wawrinka essentially played the entire match on his back foot.

Backhands

The Nadal backhand was rock solid. He hit five backhand winners, but committed only 14 total backhand errors. Both of those metrics trumped Wawrinka, who managed just three winners on the backhand wing while committing a substantial 28 backhand errors. The Spaniard measured incredible range off the backhand wing, consistently going cross-court to make Wawrinka have to hit defensive forehands on the run.

Serving

When serving in the Deuce court, Nadal won a mind-blowing 91 per cent (20/22) of his first-serve points. On second serve, he won 67 per cent (8/12). That never happens.

Nadal faced only one break point for the match, at 1-1, 30/40 in the first set. As expected, Nadal served out wide in the Ad court, but Wawrinka missed a backhand return wide and long. Nadal then hit a 189kmh ace out wide in the Deuce court, and won the following point off a Wawrinka missed forehand return.

Overall for the tournament, Nadal won 72 per cent of his first-serve points, and a mind-blowing 74 per cent of his second-serve points. The Spaniard won 65 per cent (15-23) of his second serve points against Wawrinka.

Baseline

Nadal won an impressive 60 per cent (370/618) of his baseline points for the tournament, and a lights-out 65 per cent (58/89) against Wawrinka in the final. The primary tactic was to force Wawrinka to hit defensive backhands in Ad court exchanges. Nadal then made the Swiss star hit defensive forehands out wide.

Wawrinka hardly stepped into a ball all afternoon. You’ve got to give Nadal all the credit for creating that dynamic.

Summary

Nadal was +19 in the 0-4 shot rally length, +12 in the 5-8 shot rally length, and just +6 in the 9+ shot rally length. Nadal owned the short points, and won a ridiculously high 90 per cent (18/20) of his points at net. He also never served a double fault.

This is the new version of Rafael Nadal that had the fingerprints of new coach, Carlos Moya, all over it. Rafa didn’t grind. He didn’t wait. He was always on the front foot and always looking to make Wawrinka uncomfortable.

This match was also vintage Toni Nadal. You don’t win 10 Roland Garros titles without an extremely knowledgeable mentor. When it was all said and done, it was Uncle Toni who handed Rafa the trophy. Perfect symmetry for La Decima.