Canadians Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov had winning starts Tuesday at the Terra Wortmann Open grass-court tennis tournament.
Montreal’s Auger-Aliassime fired 17 aces in a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-1 first-round win over Serbian qualifier Laslo Djere.
After losing a closely contested second set, Auger-Aliassime won 93 per cent of first serve points and converted two of his three chances to break in a dominant third set.
The win was Auger-Aliassime’s first over Djere in three tries. The world No. 27, who was coming off a run to the semifinals last week in Stuttgart, will next face the winner of a match between eighth seed Karen Khachanov of Russia and Belgium’s Zizou Bergs.
Shapovalov fought his way into the second round of the ATP 500 event in Halle, Germany, with a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (4) upset of sixth seed Ugo Humbert of France.
The No. 31 from Richmond Hill, Ont., won on his first match point on a forced error when Humbert returned the Canadian’s serve wide. Shapovalov improved his record against Humbert to 4-2.
Humbert had a chance to serve for the match with a double break point in Game 8 of the third set, but Shapovalov recovered to hold and tie it 4-4.
Shapovalov will next face No. 24 Flavio Cobolli of Italy.
Other results
Elsewhere, Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., was defeated in the first round of the WTA 500 Berlin Tennis Open 6-4, 6-3 by Amanda Anisimova of the United States.
Anisimova broke Andreescu three times on four chances to cruise to victory in 65 minutes.
Andreescu, who opened her grass season with a run to the quarterfinals of the Libema Open, fell to 7-7 on the season.
Later, Montreal’s Gabriel Diallo was set to face British wild-card Billy Harris in the first round of the ATP 500 HSBC Championships in London.
Diallo won his first ATP title last week at the Libema Open.