2024-01-09 02:47:24
Austria’s number one is also in the round of 16 in the big city in the north of New Zealand’s North Island.
After reaching the semi-finals at the Bank of China Hong Kong Tennis Open, his third on the ATP tour following Kitzbühel 2017 and Astana 2023, Sebastian Ofner has now got off to an excellent start in his second tournament of the season. The 27-year-old gave former world number tenth Denis Shapovalov no chance in the first main round of the ASB Classic in Auckland early on Tuesday morning following CET. The Styrian, seeded seventh (ATP 37), defeated the Canadian left-hander (ATP 116), who returned from a seven-month injury break and received a wild card, 6:4, 6:2 following just 68 minutes of play. In the round of 16 of the ATP 250 hard court event on Wednesday he will also meet Roberto Carballés Baena (ATP 67) for the first time, who also met a former top ten man with 6: 4, 6:3 passed.
Ofner also put in an extremely convincing performance once morest Shapovalov. In the first game, the St. Mareiner was able to exploit what was ultimately the only break chance of the first set and then put his early lead into the dry. In the second section, the protégé from Wolfgang Thiem’s ATC Academy, once more supervised on site by touring coach Stefan Rettl, was able to fend off the only two break points once morest him in the entire match at 0:1 and 15:40. In the next game, Ofner broke to make it 4-1, each with two double faults from Shapovalov, who made a total of eleven. Ofner only hit his first in the finish, which was also 5-0 in Assen. In the end, he didn’t let the clear lead in the second round be taken away from him.
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#Ofner #top #man #Shapovalov #chance
