The Canadian Denis Shapovalov saw three match points escape him and he finally lost 1-6, 7-6 and 6-3 to the second seed of the tournament played in Montpellier, Alexander Bublik.
Shapovalov flew through the first set, removing his opponent’s serve on three occasions and offering no break points to the 27th racket in the world.
The second set was hotly contested, so much so that a tiebreaker was necessary. Shapovalov had three match points during this final game, but he saw Bublik take the tiebreaker honors 14-12.
The second seed followed up with a break of serve at the start of the third set and held on until the end to earn a ticket to the quarter-finals after 2 hours 25 minutes of play.
Shapovalov was playing in his first tournament since the Australian Open. He fell to 137th in the ATP rankings.
On Thursday, Quebecer Félix Auger-Aliassime will enter the tournament. In his first match he will face the Frenchman and 83rd racket in the world, Arthur Cazaux.
After a breakthrough in the third round as a qualifier in Melbourne, Flavio Cobolli got the better of Frenchman Gaël Monfils, eighth seed, 6-7 (8), 6-3, 6-0.
The 21-year-old Italian dominated 7-3 in breaks.
2024-01-31 22:39:00
#ATP #Denis #Shapovalov #misses #match #points
