Not a successful start for the Austrian tennis players in Rio de Janeiro: Gerald Melzer lost Pablo Andujar in two sets.
Andujar is far beyond the 1,000 mark in the ATP World Ranking after an injury break, but started better in both sets than Melzer, who had last reached the quarter-finals in Quito. The Austrian number two made a comeback in the first round, but was still beaten 5:7 after a short hour.
In the second set, Andujar took a 4-1 lead for the time being, scoring the match point after 91 minutes to move into the second round – where a meeting with defending champion Dominic Thiem could wait. Thiem starts his Rio adventure in the second match of the Night Session against Dusan Lajovic in 2018.
In the only meeting with Andujar to date, Melzer had prevailed in Munich in 2015, but at that time the Spaniard had to give up in the first set due to injury. At the end of the match in Rio de Janeiro, Pablo Andujar had 16 points more on his account than Gerald Melzer – taking five times off the Austrian’s serve.
Here the single panel in Rio de Janeiro