Safiullin reaches 50 victories before his duel with Cerúndolo in Belgrade | ATP Tour

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Safiullin reaches 50 victories before his duel with Cerúndolo in Belgrade

On the same day, Jiri Lehecka advances after beating Marin Cilic

November 05, 2024

Roman Safiullin will arrive inspired for his round of 16 duel against the Argentine Francisco Cerúndolo at the Belgrade Open, an indoor ATP 250 that takes place this week in the Serbian capital.

The No. 60 in the PIF ATP Rankings not only comes from beating the Italian Fabio Fognini this Tuesday with sets of 6-3, 6-3 and in just 74 minutes. In addition, with this result he added his 50th victory on the ATP Tour (against 55 losses).

Hitting nine aces, breaking four times and winning 96% of points behind his first serve helped him seal his 18th win of the year on the ATP Tour and leave his Lexus ATP HeadToHead at 2-0 with Fognini, No. 74 in the world.

This result also comes just after Safiullin won the Challenger 125 Bratislava title in his most recent participation. The former world No. 36 will now seek to surprise the Argentine, third seeded this week and with whom he has a 1-0 record after winning this year at Wimbledon.

In other results of the day, the Slovakian Lukas Klein, from the qualifying phase, caused a surprise by beating the seventh-seeded Argentine Tomás Etcheverry 6-4, 7-6(6). This allows him to meet in the quarterfinals the Czech Jiri Lehecka, fourth seeded and who has just defeated the Croatian Marin Cilic with partials of 6-4, 7-6(4).

In addition, local Laslo Djere won 6-4, 6-4 against Swiss Stan Wawrinka in the day’s duel between guests of the organization. After leaving his Lexus ATP HeadToHead at 1-1 with the three-time Grand Slam champion, the world No. 141 will clash in the next round with the Croatian Duje Ajdukovic, who entered the draw as a lucky loser.

Hamad Medjedovic, another guest of the organization, also advanced this Tuesday by defeating the American Aleksandar Kovacevic with sets of 7-6(5), 6-4 in 80 minutes. Their rival in the quarterfinals will be the winner between Cerúndolo and Safiullin, who will collide this Wednesday (see schedule).