Day two of the ATP500. Returning to Queen’s today, number 3 seed Jakub Mensik took on Adrian Mannarino, 17 years his senior. Mannarino made his Queen’s debut in 2011 and this is his 11th main draw appearance. In the opening set, the Frenchman looked comfortable as he cruised to a 5-1 lead; however, the young Czech started to play his own game, and won 6 games in a row to take the set 7-5. Mensik then went 2-0 up in the second set, at which point it looked like he’d most likely cement a straight sets victory. This wasn’t to be though, Mannarino got the set back on serve and took it to a tie-break. In the tie-break, the Frenchman got himself 3 set points, but only one was needed to earn himself a decider. The final set again went to a tie-break and Mannarino again came out the winner to knock out the number 3 seed on his way to the second round.
Next up, we resumed last night’s match between Corentin Moutet and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. Back into the final set, we again found ourselves at a tie-break, and this time Moutet was able to get the better of his big serving opponent and complete his comeback to win it in three.
Third on the order of play today was top seed Alex de Minaur against Canadian, Gabriel Diallo. In the opening set, Diallo broke serve to go 4-2 but the Australian number 1 replied straight away to level things up. How many tie-breaks have we had already in this Championships? This match gave us another, and they remained close throughout, de Minaur clinching it 10-8 in the end. In the second set, de Minaur got an early break and backed it up with a hold to love to give himself a 4-1 lead. One break of serve was all that was needed for the top seed to move on. The final score was 7-6, 6-3 and it was by no means smooth sailing for the Australian.
Getting into the evening, the final match on Centre Court would be current British number 1 Cam Norrie, facing Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. On paper, this looked like a close match up, Norrie being world no.29 and Davidovich Fokina world no.22. In reality, that also proved to be the case. As we’ve seen so often here on Centre Court so far this week, we had another tight and hard fought set to start with. Landing once again on 6-6, we went to a tie-break. The Spaniard was the victor, winning it 8-6. The second set had a slightly different feel. Davidovich Fokina went a double break up, now the more dominant player. Norrie did claw one back, but this was then followed by another break of serve by the Spaniard who won the match 7-6, 6-2.
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