Francisco Cerúndolo smiles again in Hamburg | ATP Tour

Hamburg

Cerúndolo smiles again in Hamburg

Pedro Martinez also advanced to the second round

July 15, 2024

Clay has put a smile on Francisco Cerúndolo’s face. He won his last match on June 1 at Roland Garros before taking to the court on Monday at the Hamburg Open to face his first-round match.

The No. 4 seed was due to make his debut at the German ATP 500 against local wild card Henri Squire, but was forced to withdraw due to illness and was replaced by Francisco Comesaña. Despite the tough match, Cerúndolo won in two sets 7-5, 6-4 in one hour and 39 minutes.

The 25-year-old Argentine had lost his last four fourth-round meetings at Roland Garros (l. to Novak Djokovic), as well as his next grass-court encounters at Queen’s (l. to Carlos Alcaraz), Eastbourne (l. to Marcos Giron) and Wimbledon (l. to Roman Safiullin).

On Monday at Hamburg’s Rothenbaum Stadium, she converted five breaks from 12 opportunities and demonstrated a great ability to react to turn around a second set that she was losing 2-4. She managed to string together four games in a row to win her 14th clay court match of the year (out of 17 in total).

The eldest of the Cerúndolo brothers will face German wild card Maximilian Marterer in the second round, who had just completed a marathon to beat Soonwoo Kwon 6-4, 6-7(6), 7-5 in two hours and 49 minutes.

The same intensity was present in the match that opened the centre court – and the main draw – between Flavio Cobolli and Daniel Altmaier, which the Italian won 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-3, in two hours and 38 minutes.

The No. 48 in the PIF ATP Rankings now awaits the winner of Tuesday’s match between No. 8 seed Zhizhen Zhang and Thiago Seyboth Wild.

Laslo Djere also advanced to the second round against Zizou Bergs 6-3, 7-6(4), as did French qualifier Ugo Blanchet against Alexei Popyrin 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-2 and Kazakhstan’s Alexander Shevchenko against German Rudolf Molleker 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

Finally, to close out Monday’s session, Pedro Martinez scored the big win of the day, defeating No. 6 seed Matteo Arnaldi 7-6(4), 6-1 in one hour and 40 minutes.

The Spaniard, who was down 2-5 in the first set, won 11 of the next 13 games to book his place in the second round. The No. 49 in the PIF ATP Rankings also snapped a four-match losing streak to move on to the ATP 500 in Hamburg, where he will face French qualifier Ugo Blanchet.