Grigor Dimitrov has already failed surprisingly in the first round of the ATP-500 tournament in Dubai. The top seed was defeated by Tunisian Malek Jaziri on Tuesday, 6:4,5:7,4:6.
Throughout the entire match, the Bulgarians allowed themselves 15 unforced mistakes more than their opponent (41:26) and beat only 29 winners, while Jaziri scored 36. In addition, Dimitrov served a total of twelve double errors at 14 aces. Jaziri, who reached the quarter-finals in Dubai in 2014, fought off seven of the eight break points.
Dimitrov was the only player from the top 10 in the world rankings to have named for the tournament in the United Arab Emirates. For Jaziri, who is in the main field of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships only thanks to a wild card, it was the first victory over a top 10 player of his career.
The 34-year-old Jaziri will meet Robin Haase from the Netherlands in round two, who defeated Quentin Halys from France 7:5,2:6,6:4. Lucas Pouille is now the remaining player with the highest bet. He won his opening match against Ernest’s Gulbis with a strong performance in two sets.
Already at noon Jan-Lennard Struff won his first round match against Andreas Haider-Maurer.
Philipp Kohlschreiber also entered round two on Monday. He had no problems against qualifier Gleb Sakharov and won 6-4,6-2. Florian Mayer, on the other hand, was eliminated, losing to Roberto Bautista-Agut in two sets.
Data Overview of the results from Dubai