Florian Mayer has already been eliminated in the first round of the ATP-500 tournament at Rothenbaum in Hamburg. The German held up well against the current world number 13 Pablo Carreno-Busta for a long time, but lost 6:2, 1:6, 6:7(4) in the end.
Mayer got off to a good start at the sand court event worth 1.6 million euros. With breaks to 2:1 and 4:1 he secured the first set after 34 minutes. Afterwards, however, the favoured Carreno-Busta came into play better and took nine of the next eleven games.
With break behind in the decisive set, however, Mayer fought back again, played himself into a tiebreak, but then had to admit defeat.
Nevertheless, the applause for the outgoing routine did not want to end. Mayer will end his career at the US Open in a few weeks.
The man from Bayreuth made his debut in the Hanseatic city 14 years ago; once he reached the final, three times the semi-finals and four more times Mayer reached the quarter-finals. “All in all, I have achieved more than I ever dreamed of,” said the former number 18 in the world rankings.
On Tuesday, top seed Dominic Thiem will enter the tournament for the first time, the French Open finalist will face French qualifier Corentin Moutet. The German colours are represented by Jan-Lennard Struff (Warstein), Philipp Kohlschreiber from Augsburg and Peter Gojowczyk from Munich.