Heads and tails of two great ATP favorites in Halle

The German Alexander Zverevsecond favorite and recent finalist of Roland Garrossuffered in his debut on grass and needed a comeback and three sets to win the duel against his compatriot Oscar Otte6-7 (5), 6-3 and 6-4, and settled in the second round of the tournament Halle.

The Hamburg player lacks success on grass. None of the twenty-two trophies he has in his history have been on grass. The top of it, the two finals, certainly, in Halle. Not successful. In 2016 he was surpassed by his compatriot Florian Mayer and in 2017, defeated by Roger Federer.

He needed two hours and 19 minutes to beat Otte, who has already had problems at Roland Garros, on clay, in 2021, where he needed all five rounds. Otte, ranked 474th in the ATP rankings, won the main draw from the previous round and put the world number 4 in check, avoiding defeat and meeting Italian Lorenzo Sonego in the second round.

On the other hand, another of the great favorites, the Russian Andrey Rublevseeded fourth, lost against the American Marcos Giron.

Rublev, who lost last year in the final against Kazakh Alexandr Bublik, lost on this occasion 6-4 and 7-6. He did so in a very tight match where he had only two options to break his rival’s serve, the first of which failed in the opening set and the second of which he took advantage of in the sixth game of the following set, which did not work for to him.

Pedro Martínez experienced a situation similar to his; who fell 6-3 and 6-4 against Christopher Eubanks. In his case he did not take advantage of the break option he had in the first game of the match and after serving his serve in the second he was unable to balance the set again. Later, in the second set, he saw how Eubanks won the first game and the ninth game in the others, making the Spaniard’s break in the sixth game null and void.