Felix Auger-Aliassime made an ideal begin to his title defence on the ABN AMRO Open on Tuesday.

The Canadian fired previous Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-2, 6-3 to succeed in the second spherical in Rotterdam. The third seed saved the 2 break factors he confronted to advance to a second-round conflict with Frenchman Gregoire Barrere after one hour and 22 minutes.

When Auger-Aliassime arrived in Rotterdam final 12 months, he had not but claimed an ATP Tour title and misplaced his first set of the event towards Egor Gerasimov. He had no such issue towards Sonego, whose spinny groundstrokes allowed the four-time tour-level champion to crush ball after ball from the baseline.

The defending champion additionally confirmed good really feel across the web all through the match to take a 2-0 ATP Head2Headvert lead towards the Italian.

Hubert Hurkacz wanted three hours to battle by the primary match of the day, eliminating Roberto Bautista Agut 7-5, 6-7(7), 7-6(4). Bautista Agut had gained the pair’s first three tour-level conferences, however Hurkacz saved six of the 9 break factors he confronted to maneuver on.

In different motion, two-time Nitto ATP Finals champion Alexander Zverev ousted South Korea’s Soonwoo Kwon 6-4, 7-6(4) behind 10 aces. The German saved all three break factors he confronted and can subsequent play Dutch wild card Tallon Griekspoor, who clawed previous Swedish qualifier Mikael Ymer 7-6(7), 7-5.

«Every match for me is very important right now and obviously playing against very high-level players and having wins against them I think is very important for my confidence as well,» Zverev mentioned. «We’ll see how this week goes, but I’m definitely excited for just every match that I’m going to play here.»