Mirza Basic stunned No. 4 seed Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-5, 7-6(5) at the Diema Xtra Sofia Open to reach his second quarter-final of the season on Wednesday. The No. 129, who reached the last eight at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (l. Pella), broke serve in the 12th game of the first set to take a one-set lead and secured a crucial mini-break at 5/5 in the second set tie-break to upset the German after one hour and 41 minutes. Kohlschreiber, who has captured one tour-level title in each of the past four seasons, remains winless in 2018 while Basic awaits the winner of Thursday’s second-round match between Maximilian Marterer and No. 7 seed Joao Sousa. Germany’s Marterer continued his strong start...
Stan Wawrinka took time out on Wednesday to stop at the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in the centre of Sofia. The Neo-Byzantine style cathedral is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world, holding 10,000 people and is one of the capital’s primary tourist attractions. Top seeded Wawrinka starts his DIEMA XTRA Sofia Open campaign on Thursday night against qualifier Martin Klizan, in what will be his first match since his second-round Australian Open loss to Tennys Sandgren. “I feel much better since Australia,” said Wawrinka. “The first day I came home I started practising really hard, especially fitness wise, trying to get my knee better.” The three-time Grand Slam champion emphasised the need for more match play...
Viktor Troicki secured just his third win in nine matches since the 2017 Rolex Shanghai Masters to beat former Top 10 player Ernests Gulbis 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-3 at the Diema Xtra Sofia Open on Tuesday. The 31-year-old started strong with an early break of serve before closing out the opener to love with confidence. The second set saw dominant serving from both men, with none of the 12 games reaching deuce before Gulbis dominated the tie-break to force a decider. Troicki continued his dominant serving in the third set, and after breaking the Latvian in the fourth game, served out the match to love five games later to end Gulbis’ challenge. Troicki did not face a single break point in...
In 2017, Lukas Lacko did not win a main draw tour-level match after the Australian Open until the Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open in Newport in July. This year, the Slovakian wasted no time, upsetting eighth seed Evgeny Donskoy 6-4, 6-4 at the Diema Xtra Sofia Open on Monday. Lacko extended his FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead against the Russian to 2-0, with their previous meeting coming at the 2014 Shenzhen Open. The Slovakian broke twice in the match, and did not face break point himself to advance to the second round, where he will face either Moldovan Radu Albot or qualifier Jozef Kovalik. In the only other main draw match of the day, seventh seed Joao Sousa withstood...
After a stellar end to 2017 and a breakthrough performance at this year’s Australian Open, Maximilian Marterer looks set to be the next German tennis star to break through on the ATP World Tour. The 22-year-old German won 21 of his 23 matches on the ATP Challenger Tour in September and October to secure three titles, before announcing himself on the world stage with a run to the third round at this year’s Australian Open. Currently at a career-high No. 82 in the ATP Rankings, Marterer made his intentions clear when asked, ahead of his first-round match against Malek Jaziri at this week’s Diema Xtra Sofia Open, whether he had any goals after breaking into the Top 100 of the...
