Sebastian Ofner has celebrated his first match success on the tour level in Sao Paolo in over six months after surviving qualification. In the first round of the $582,000 ATP-250 tournament (from Friday live on DAZN), the Styrian won 6-3,6-3 against Italy’s Marco Cecchinato.
Previously, Ofner had already prevailed over two qualifying rounds. The 21-year-old had an excellent performance against Cecchinato in his own service games, scoring ten aces over the entire match, with Ofner scoring 88 per cent of the points on his first serve.
In the middle of the first set he started a decisive run. With a score of 3:3, he won six games in a row to pull out his opponent’s teeth.
Ofner thus celebrated his first victory at the highest level since his semi-final move to Kitzbühel in August 2017. Ofner, who received financial support from the ITF Grand Slam Development Fund for his trip, will now meet Pablo Cuevas in the second round. The Uruguayan, currently number 31 in the world, enjoys a walk-through in the first round.
Meanwhile, Gerald Melzer withdrew in doubles after his first-round defeat against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Originally, he would have planned to compete with the American Tennys Sandgren. At the ATP-500 tournament in Rio de Janeiro they had already competed in doubles, but failed in the first round of qualifying.